Living to Duel
by EternalKing
Summary: "When a duel monster spirit comes up and yanks your spirit to another world without so much as a Hello, a guy doesn't have much of a choice but to live in a new world. Hopefully the Me of the other universes wake up soon." SI - No Pairings. Serious story and will be Rated M for themes later on. Contains a lot of world building in the first chapter. Duels will be better after CH 1.
1. Chapter 1

Yugioh Living to Duel

Try and read until the end before passing holy judgement. Duels, interactions, and explanations get better as this is still a prologue-ish chapter. Reading AN is important

Second Chapter has the longer list of decks that will be used, for now, expect Metalfoes, Masked Heroes, Crystrons, Dinomists, Shaddolls, Vendreads, and Noble Knights(not all of these are shown in this chapter, and they aren't the only decks)

Rated M for themes and how serious the story will take itself. NO PAIRINGS BUT ONLY SHIP TEASES.

Plans for this fic. So I intend on pulling stuff from the manga short series for this but it won't be the sole focus of everything in the story nor will it be the only thing I keep in mind. I'm also going to be pulling in characters and elements from the other series including the original because this self insert isn't just going into the world of yugioh or duel monsters, he's going into a REAL WORLD with advanced technologies and supernatural elements. After all, look at the innovation we have alone in entertainment(like games), in this world, Kaiba fucking broke the barrier of time just to settle a duel so I'm absolutely keeping in some of the absurd technology advances to match up with the duel spirits and supernatural shit. With all that in mind I can completely believe Action Duels, Turbo Duels, capsule monsters and the like, all exist in a certain capacity especially when it would make Kaiba and other people even richer. Hell, even synchros and XYZ would exist in a capacity by this point.

I'm using the Japanese versions for a lot of things, but I will pull from the English in certain cases, this also applies to anime and actual in game effects. For example while people think the shadow realm was a giant lie and shouldn't have existed, I don't think it was that bad in certain duels and it does need to exist in some capacity for certain duels(like GX and tragoedia who basically sent people to the shadow realm) and as for card effects we all know Bubbleman was better in the show.

Plot: To put it simply I have Four or so Arcs.

The first year arcs will be some combination of character development and bonding using the lighthearted school events, with a small arc of the Seven Stars(because the SS can only be changed by who Duels I'll mostly focus on the school stuff but while the former won't have life threatening tension it won't be plain and simple) and the manga threat.

Second year arcs will be the Light of Destruction with differences. I may add another threat after or before but in undecided at the time being.

Third year arcs will be the Yubel arcs(with twists to make it non Yubel related at the second half) and then with Darkness overcoming the world(but it also won't be like the anime cuz the anime was on a time constraint so everybody 'died' off screen).

Fourth year is post graduation where elements from the other series really start to kick in and you see how the characters from GX are currently faring in their dreams.

However there will a number of smaller somewhat unconnected series of arcs due me bringing in Kaiba/Pegasus.

While my self insert may 'look' overpowered and perfect in personality I'm not blind to what might be faults, and I do intend on showing them as flaws, just like Jaden/Judai faults having been there in the show the entire time. He will grow as both a duelist and a person. While you might assume that bringing in so many modern cards would make him perfect and unbeatable, anything can happen in a duel(both in real life and absolutely in the world I'm writing). and I've had plenty of cases of playing the game and losing when I had the upper hand. I also intend on using actual real life Duels(using my friends) for some of the less world threatening conflicts to keep things real. Not only that, but despite having my self insert have some really advanced or strong cards, he won't be using some of them often on the account that he knows there will be a consequences or desire(because I don't care for meta and care more about aesthetics).

For example he won't be playing the Blue Eyes anytime soon because those cards are nonexistent in other people's decks in the Yugioh world and this new one I'm writing. It's just I think people are too stuck on the idea that a protagonist needs to stick with a single archetype in their story, hell look at the learning to duel series, konami/red hat had plenty of different decks. My self insert will also be somewhat of an unreliable narrator, helped by the fact that I'm not the most observant of people. And you will also see that he 'grows' into being a better duelist but more as a person. Hell, part of this first chapter is doing just that. Also, no real pairings, but ships will be teased.

And since we're on the topic of flaws and consequences, Judai and the other members will grow earlier, but will in turn face different and more threats. This is because while we all agree that Judai needed to grow, him becoming the Supreme King and killing his own friends really fucked him up. Hell, his ending in the show and movie are kind of bittersweet since a lot of people look at his 'after the show' life as him being a loner and never even seeing his friends that much. Even Chronos/Crowler, who was a real dick and a filler villain for season one, became a good character and we all enjoyed his graduation duel against Judai. While the self insert wants to keep them from being terribly hurt, he also knows that they need to grow as people(like Manjoume/Chazz) in order to live and confront the future threats.

Character traits will also be important in the story, such as Judai's lack of darkness coming into play earlier, and Ryou having multiple effects on the student body due to his style of dueling and his power to show how important he is. Each character will have a purpose and an effect on the story equal to their value(Hayato/Chumley will affect certain events around duel spirits for example but not when it comes to tournaments)

 **Chapter Start**

 _It started out as a dream, or perhaps it was no dream at all. Either way, the beginning of a new life meant the end of a previous life. I intended on making the best of it. Otherwise, what would be the point in me even coming here._

"Yaaaaa." Yawning sure did get the heart pumping. Not very useful when you're trying to sleep though.

It was a good time to sleep. And it felt good to lie down. My bed was only about average, but it felt like the most comfortable thing in the world. Just about everyone feels something like that at least once in their life.

Drifting away in my thoughts, was the thought that hopefully my dream is a combination of being vivid, creative, and something I can remember when I get up. After all, drawing art, writing stories and making plots for games can also come from my unconscious brain.

I wouldn't mind dreaming about sexy stuff either. Those girls from Senran Kagura and Dead or Alive are real alluring. There's more than just them that I wouldn't mind dreaming about.

Zzzzzzzz...

ZzzzzzZ...

...

...

...

I saw myself being shaken in third person perspective. I was in a dark cloud with something on my wrist and I saw a friend from high school give me something before I blinked and he was gone.

As far as dreams go, not that weird. Although seeing him makes me feel nostalgic. I didn't really graduate too long ago, but I already wish I could go back. The real world sucks.

I realized I had stood up and placed something on the thing on my wrist.

There was a small flash of light and giant white dragon appeared in the darkness and shot towards some sort of dark dragon.

I didn't quite recognize what was going just yet. But it looked cool and terrifying.

A close look showed that the mouth on me was moving, but I didn't hear any words. The only thing I did hear was the roaring and fighting of the dragons.

I heard a sound akin to glass shattering and I had given a smirk before collapsing.

And before I knew it I was back to seeing in first person. I don't know how other people dream, but switching between first and third person was pretty normal for me. I assume it was because of video games.

I pushed myself up, noting it was slow. The object I assumed was on my wrist seemed to instead be on my whole arm and it stuck out. There was a small card that I couldn't read but understood what it meant. The picture on the card was of a feathery beast.

I realized that there was a name, Judgement Dragon, the beast that I had just seen be summoned.

In the back of my head I realize I'm having a yugioh dream. Not surprising since I play an emulator of the tag force games every now and again while also keeping up with the cards being made because I like the aesthetics of it all.

In the very forefront of my mind wasn't about my dream, but rather the feeling that I needed to do something. Again, not out of the norm for a dream.

The Dragon of the Lightsworns dissipated in particles of light while I head a quiet growling. My Duel Disk was gold and had a shining rainbow colored jewel on the wrist component. On the blade I noted that there were two extra tiles extending the blade that were colored bluish. I instinctively knew that these were for my Pendulum Monsters, what few I had anyways.

The duel disk automatically shuffled the deck and when I pulled out the cards, rather than Lightsworns I saw cards with Nekroz at the top. I've never actually played them, but a ritual monster's a ritual monster, so it couldn't be that hard right?

I heard the traditional sound effect of a monster being summoned and saw Summoned Skull or maybe one of his archfiend counterparts being summoned. My life points was stuck at 1800 so it looked like a duel was still going.

I used the card Nekroz Kaleidoscope, which would let me summon a ritual monster by sending a monster from the extra deck to the graveyard. I didn't know how I knew it would work, only that it would.

A synchro black colored monster was sent to the graveyard and I summoned a man in armor colored red and black.

I shouted for him to attack and it was successful.

I wondered how exactly this was gonna end if I couldn't see my opponents life points.

I saw three menacing shades of darkness appear in front of me before disappearing and monster was summoned. It was terrifying, but I couldn't bring myself to be scared. It was huge and stepped off a giant throne. His sword was black and actually looked pretty cool, and his knees had skulls that opened up to reveal something red.

Thunder suddenly struck my Nekroz monster and he was gone. The Archfiend monster swung his sword at me and for some reason I thought this was it.

"Kuri!"

A literal sphere with green tiny limbs shot to the sword and suddenly the monster was forced to sit back down on his throne for some reason.

"Kuri Kuri!" The thing shouted at me. Was it some sort of Kuroboh? Kind of weird looking.

A purple or pink colored archfiend with spikes on the sides appeared next to the throne sitting monster.

I frowned, and I tapped my head wondering if I could win, and something popped out in front of my right eye. My vision was exactly the same, if slightly bluer, but suddenly I could see the attack points and names of the monsters.

Archfiend Emperor, the First Lord of Horror, and Archfiend Commander. They were at 3000 and 2500 attack.

I drew a card, Graceful Charity and played it alongside Pot of Avarice, and appropriately drew and discarded cards.

" _With the Power of Rebirth, save your clan from the abyss and hold back the terrors! Gishiki Shoukan_!"

I used Nekroz Mirror and banished the monsters I discarded, and a red headed beauty who literally lit up the dark area showed up, and the enemy monsters vanished from her appearance. It was like she was a goddess.

 **"FoOL! DoNoT THiNk I WiLl bE bEaT!"**

I saw a really creepy crawly monster scowl at me and suddenly I was drowning in darkness. When it stopped, the red head and ball who saved my ass were gone and my hand was filled with new monsters again. Likewise the field was different. My side was empty of monsters and Chaos Fiend Archfiend in all its burning glory was on the other side.

My hand was nearly filled with monster's, all of whom shared "Bujin" in their name. I think I recognized them. Wasn't this an XYZ deck?

I used graceful charity yet again, discarding monsters in favor of spells.

I banished a monster from the graveyard to summon a thin energy shade in white armor that was really bright. The thing on my eye said it was Hirume. Then I activated a spell card allowing me to summon the graveyard and banished monsters. Then I normal summoned Yamato.

" **Overlay! Storming Bujin clad in Unstoppable Steel to slay Evil! Raging Bujin of Incinerating Flames that turn even bonds to ashes! Appear Now Rank 4s! XYZ shoukan! Bujintei Susanowo! Bujintei Kagetsuchi!"**

The three monsters stared each other down. The visor(as I have no idea what else it could be) told me that Susanowo's effect raised his attack enough to defeat the monster.

The two attacked, and I finally got an indication there were life points on my opponent as he slipped to 2200. Meanwhile mine were 2100. It was a different number, but it felt right.

Another high level monster was summoned by sacrificing shades of darkness. It was Archfiend Empress, who for an archfiend looked very human, except for the part where she had horns. She attacked Susanowo, but I banished bujingi Ikuta to save him.

Since it was my turn again I played double summon and used it for another XYZ monster.

" _Overlay! The Contemplate Bujin that Lights up the Night to reassure its dwellers! Bujintei Tsukuyomi!_ "

Somehow, a wall of darkness twisted into a negate attack keeping the duel going. Archfiend Empress and more shades were sacrificed to reveal a frightening beast. It was a green monster with bones for armor.

A jashin, a Wicked God. Dreadroot.

It was a divine monster. An impenetrable wall without divine cards. But then I would just have to go around it.

I banished a dark colored Bujin to activate its effect.

" _The Dark Sun overshadows its former Allies! Corrupted and Powerful Bujin! Appear! Bujinki Amaterasu!_ "

I activated the Bujin Regalia Mirror to give her more than 2000 attack due to all the XYZ materials still attached. Then discarded another bujingi to let her attack directly, allowing me to bypass the Wicked God.

" **YuO! HwO DaEr OuY!** "

The twisted and echoing words made me shiver as the darkness tried to swallow me.

I pulled myself up and I saw different sights as I was elevated. An island with a volcano. A sleek black motorcycle. A futuristic city with bright lights pointing up. A burning comet soaring through the cosmos. Darkness and Light colliding.

Before I knew it it was over and I was back dueling in the shadows.

My life points were at 3100, and the other was at 1400. It was like the original values were trading places slowly.

I had Stardust Sifr Divine Dragon and Red Nova Dragon facing off against some indescribable monster. It was Tierra, Source of Destruction. Looks like I was getting a fireworks show.

" **Fi YoU wAnT SOmEtHnG DoEn. dO iT yOurSeLF! i Am NoT enTErtAInEd! DdiE! Ddie!** "

The face of my enemy, Tragoedia seemed to decide that dueling was no longer worth it and charged me directly.

Obviously I was not down with that and I flicked a card towards him. It flashed slightly and was replaced by Dark Magician Girl riding a dragon. I couldn't help but think it was badass and continued on. Each card flicked from my deck became a monster. Silent Swordsman. The Ritual Beast clan. The different Extra deck Heroes. The Gem Knights. Psy-Framelord Omega. Inzektors. The Darklords. Noble Knights. Six Samurai. The monster's of World Chalice and Prophecy. Different dragons of different strengths like the Red Eyes, Blue eyes, the Legendary Dragons, the Dimensional Dragons. The monster's I dueled with like the Lightsworn, Bujins, Nekroz, and Stardust dragons.

It was a one sided slaughter.

Or at least, it was for a good ten seconds until the disgusting monster fled away.

I stumbled back and forth and my surroundings were different. I saw myself turning to particles while crying. I saw myself in a red jacket dueling against people with jackets colored Red, Yellow, and Blue, with someone in Red carrying a sack and entering some sort of rip in space. I saw myself look down in boredom while on a throne. I saw myself hold hands with a girl my height. I saw myself in a white room with some sort of mask attached to me.

I got pulled and pushed by the darkness. I was tugged and shoved by the light.

I twisted and turned and suddenly I was on a beach.

My eyes scowled as it was bright and I felt hands on my body.

I heard a voice growl at me. "Ressssst."

* * *

"Huhh?" I tried to murmur out. Just talking took quite a bit of energy. Not surprising, I was never a morning person.

"You're awake!" A short tomboy cried towards me. Uhhhhh, where was I? Who was this?

"My God it's a miracle!" I guess some doctors were rushing in. God I felt so dazed for some reason.

I fell back asleep almost immediately. No more energy to stay awake I guess...

* * *

My first few weeks in this new world were interesting to say the least. Aside from the fact I was apparently on a cruise that completely vanished until I showed up on the beach with a locked chest that only opened up to me(and had the belongings of people that weren't me) and brought to the hospital, I somehow had the attention of the Kaibas. An adult Mokuba(his hair was long as fuck too, and boy was I jealous of that) was often visiting, asking me what I remember, and making sure I was alright and such. I was only a little surprised that he didn't have much trouble believing me in that I was sure the cruise(and myself) got caught in some shadow/yami game dark magic shit.

Then there was the girl who was by my side when I woke up, Saotome Rei.

Yes, the real version of an anime character. Who was also apparently old enough to legitimately go to Duel Academy after another year.

Needless to say, it was awkward at first. What with me not knowing any memories of her aside from a fake version of her.

Also, apparently she had a sister, Serena(a long haired girl with a yellow ribbon holding it, her hair color was a weird shade like Rei's, somewhere between purple and dark blue), who I'm fairly certain is from another Yugioh Series but hey, the universe is what it is.

Between those three, Minerva of the Lightsworns, and the Internet, I had my hands full just understanding myself and what type of world this is.

Apparently my name was [Rai] which was at least close to one of my nicknames which would be pronounced [Rye]. My name was written ライエン which was close to ライアー or [Liar] but also [Lying](and I had to wonder why anyone would name their child that). Almost fitting. As if Fate had a word in what my name was because lying was about to be something I'm going to do a whole lot of I assume. My last name was 士気 or [Shiki] which was written with [Morale].

Well, at least I would be able to react to both names.

It was a good thing I was allowed a laptop to pass the time. I needed to brush up on my Japanese, much as it still hurt my brain. Plus I needed to research this world if I wanted to fit in. There was just so much going on that just explaining some of it made my head spin. Especially with how disorganized my research was, what with it being between talking with Mokuba/Serena/Rei, the Internet, and Duel Spirits.

The reveal of Pendulum cards and the different summoning methods had helped given an early realization that this world was not at all like the anime I watched, and definitely a world in its own right.

Pegasus apparently introduced Synchros while Kaiba seemed to introduce XYZ, which kept the two corporates a powerhouse in the duel monsters department. Pendulum and Links seemed to show up out of nowhere, being used by Sakaki Yusho(and it hadn't exactly changed the field too much either). He was a Pro in the Action Duel scene...up until his disappearance a while back, with not even a family to mourn.

It was somewhat of a long shot, but Sakaki Yusho's disappearance and the lack of family got me curious, so I started digging on him and any other missing pros.

He was hardly the only Pro to be missing, though most simply assumed that these Pros were only retired.

Koyo Hibiki and Zarc and Ray Akaba stood out above them all due to me actually knowing them, though my knowledge of Zarc and Arc V in general relied on secondhand knowledge. All three of them seemingly disappeared from the scene.

There were also plenty of people that I knew by reputation but not name from GX that weren't around it seemed. O' Brian's father, that old guy who taught Misawa, that Viper guy who committed suicide.

But it wasn't as if I could do anything, so I just put all that out of my mind.

The disparity between show and 'reality' were eye opening to how serious I needed to be in my research. I was lucky that I, or this body's owner, had won a junior tourney a long while back which gifted him some rare cards, and also that in a combination of luck and 'Duel energy'(for lack of better terms) new cards can be created on the fly(or so certain research papers said). Plus, the whole "this world has everything in yugioh" made me feel really at ease with showing Rei and Serena the cards I had when I asked them to bring me the chest that was with me.

The conclusion of how cards could just be made out of nowhere was something that had been considered even back in season one of the original yugioh as headcanon. However, unlike Joey, Yugi, and Kaiba who all went through that in high tension situations and didn't question it, when it happens to new duelists and something odd happens like fusing two unrelated monsters for a new unreleased monster, they go to someone like Pegasus who then makes it a new card to make it more official since some people called bullshit in those matters. Kaiba Corp. and Industrial Illusions both dedicate divisions to understand and research this type of phenomena.

Hell, it made sense too. Why create a card like the Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon when there's only like four of Blue Eyes in existence(and the odds of them being with one person smaller than a decimal). I even noted that the Blue Eyes White Dragon was a rare card like in the show, but it now had a few dozen copies in the entire world and instead more cards that treated themselves as a Blue Eyes. In fact while the Blue Eyes White Dragon was still the greatest card in its archetype, there were Blue Eyes cards with attack equal to the Red Eyes Black Chick and Black Dragon. Not only were there more cards in that deck, but there were also other cards and archetypes that I didn't know about that were around. It was sobering, and also not surprising with a hint of exciting. After all, this world was built on Duel Monsters, and even all the cards on my world wouldn't be a quarter of the amount made and designed here. I was always interested in card designing for the game and in casual duels with my...friends lead to us using some fun casual OC cards(casual in the sense they don't automatically win and are fun to use).

But luckily, I should be fine when it comes to using my cards, in fact I wonder if this means I can find new monsters to summon with Super Polymerization or Polymerization. After all, even in the Duel Monsters Lore certain 'tribes' or archetypes had fused together against threats which translated to cards like Gusto Emerl. It was worth experimentation at least, I might even make new cards like the Sage version of Dark Magician, just hopefully not as useless.

And while there were unfortunately no 'complete' list of cards made, it did seem to me that there was nothing resembling a ban list, which made my life easier. Of course I had no intention of following anything like that in a Shadow Duel. There were only certain restrictions, like monster reborn being limited to one copy.

I did note that while you could just search for some famous people with rare cards, their exact decks were never shown. Same with other Pro duelists. I had taken this chance to look up duelists I know and see if I could find them. Apparently Johan exists in this world, he even has Rainbow Dragon but rarely uses him. And the King of Games apparently has aces in the form of Silent Magician, who is called his Mightiest Magician, but he often brings out Dark Magician unless his opponent is tough enough to bring out the female Magician. And Jonouchi was pretty famous for having incredibly good luck, Red Eyes Black Dragon, and turning the tables on his opponent. There were others naturally, Edo Phenex dueled Pros all over the world with a combination of the Destiny Heroes and Vision Heroes(as a Hero user I was happy to note that his cards were rare, not one of a kind, as his father while now handicapped was still alive), the Hibiki Siblings(though reports are scarce since one is a teacher and the other seemingly vanished from the world) and their Darklord and Hero decks. I even found Amon who while not in the Pros was rumored to be close to entering. I wondered if his life was closer to the anime or manga forms of GX.

Researching the Pros even lead me to research something that could lead anyone to their defeat. Partially due to Jonouchi.

Luck.

While it was clear that luck did play a big part of the game, it was noted that duelists had a tendency to swing towards one side of the spectrum more than another, and when testing luck against various decks, a duelists luck could be on a different spot of the spectrum with some decks more than others. I wondered if it was because of Duel Spirits. I know they have a limited capacity to affect the game on their own, and maybe they just didn't match up with certain duelists. It would make sense, seeing as even in GX's last season Judai just wanted to get his duels over with, and his deck followed a pattern of ruthlessness.

Other than actual serious research, I spent a good amount of time lazing around. Watching anime and video game walkthroughs were pretty telling of the current society. Not taking into account the really serious themes, a lot of them touched on Duel Spirits story wise. In fact with how big Duel Monsters were, I wouldn't be surprised if the anime and video game cards were also actual dual spirits. Kinda like Kaibaman(a surprisingly good anime).

That thought was also slightly scary given how crazy powerful some of them were, but I tried not to think about it.

Physical Therapy was a bitch, though it didn't take unbearably long for me to get the okay to not need that. Apparently my body here was much stronger than the one I had. Made sense since the physical strength of people in this world was literally crazy sometimes. Plus unlike me, this guy actually cared to work out when not in school. All I did was join my sports teams in high school(in my defense though, I joined Track, Cross Country, Volleball, and Tennis all at the same time).

Mokuba(san) mentioned that the principal would just let me transfer in to Duel Academy if I couldn't recover in time, so no rush there. Apparently other me was already registered to take the exam alongside Serena. With no other choice except to live in this world I figure Duel Academia would help me figure myself out.

I wondered if I could convince anyone to help me get a Duel Runner. But then again, I was still fifteen at the moment.

I actually really wanted to join the Turbo Races and Action Duels that they had on this world. While normal duels were the most loved, the other types of duels and entertainment were enjoyable for the extra excitement that they added. Although normal sports such as racing and football were still just as big as they were in my world.

Anyways, since I don't really have much to do, I've also taken plenty of journeys into the Other Realm. Getting to know duel spirits was as fun as you would expect. The Kuribohs and Toon Monsters were hilarious to be with(even if I don't use the latter), and the female monsters usually made me nervous with how attractive they were even though they didn't do anything. That was mostly just my awkwardness with hot girls playing in.

Some of my cards in the chest were locked away(as in the cards didn't want to fight with me) but a good bunch were available still.

Talking duel strategies and the best edits of a deck with the people in them was weird though.

Before I knew it a few months had passed by. I still haven't dueled anyone. I wasn't really brave enough to traverse the hospital and ask around so I mostly kept to my laptop.

I did get to talk to Rei and Serena a lot. Never would have guessed I'd end up being a childhood friend with a character from an anime at any point in my existence. She didn't seem very lovestruck, though she did praise strong duelists a lot like Ryo Marufuji(or Zane alternatively). Maybe being childhood friends with a duelist on the path to becoming a pro and her sister being who she was Rei was pretty disillusioned with or used to strong duelists. She even had Lightsworns already, which was only a deck I remember her having in Tag Force as an Obelisk(apparently Other me helped her make it).She told me a lot about the other me, and it looked like he was pretty similar to myself.

It was embarrassing to know that she knew all my passwords (interestingly, the password patterns all fit the ones I used). Apparently I (this world's me) left copies in different places in my room which she found on her own.

She was pretty snoopy.

It was nice using her to gauge how this world was outside of using the internet, which I knew better than to just believe. She even helped me study so I could pass the written exam for DA.

Serena wasn't quite as talkative as Rei. Not in the sense that she didn't want to talk to me, but in the sense that she was even more socially awkward than me, only didn't realize it. Without Rei to translate for me, I might have been put off by the girl. I never got to watch Arc V so I wasn't sure how to interact with her-though I did keep up with the cool cards that showed up in the anime. Her deck were the same lunalights(or I suppose I should say Moonlights). To be honest, other than knowing she probably wasn't Rei's sister in the anime I didn't know much about her. Hell her voice alone surprised me showing how much I knew about her. She seemed pretty prideful, not wanting to duel me since I was reconstructing decks and that I didn't really have any memory of dueling.

She said that it was because she wasn't some guinea pig to test decks on(I was pretty annoyed at that) but then Rei just said that Serena wanted my first duel with her to be a serious one so we could be on equal footing.

Eventually, I was let out of the Hospital with all my things after three months, and Mokuba(san, have to remember that) left me his number if I remember anything about the cruise or if I was in any trouble whatsoever.

I only had a month until the exam date. But that was more than enough time.

I was allowed back into my family's home, which was ironic to say since it was just a stranger's home to me. It wasn't terribly big, but the girls lived next door and constantly barged in to keep me company(well, Rei barged in and Serena followed). Their parents also constantly invited me for dinner.

Considering that buying food was my only option, I usually(always) accepted, especially since Rei wouldn't quit badgering me if I said I'd just eat out.

I ended up spending my time in my Duel Spirits Realm specifically with certain groups, since they were the ones I would be using often in public.

Though a few of them preferred to not talk to me, despite me somehow having their cards.

The Lightlords as I should remember to call them shut me out still aside from Minerva and the Dragons, according to the others they still felt guilty in bringing me here that they didn't feel worthy of being used, I just figured that they refused to let anyone else other than my counterpart use them. Either way, they weren't for me as of now. I was tempted to just give them to Rei since she was familiar with them, but I figured it would be too odd, especially when I(he) helped make a Lightsworn deck for her(the tiny differences between my Lightlords and her Lightsworn were odd though).

It was hectic with all the work I gave myself and me getting distracted by entertainment crap. I was never good with focusing on work. Though by work I mean studying for the exam. Researching the similarities and differences between worlds was pretty interesting though, so it wasn't hard to keep going.

Looking into my own history was pretty exciting too. I wasn't really famous, but I did find that I did have some sites and blogs dedicated to me(it also felt a bit weird). I've(he's) won more than enough Tournaments. Which grabbed a lot of cash. Though apparently most of it was just placed into the bank. Apparently there was a few tournaments a couple months ago for some tickets to a Kaiba cruise. I (unluckily) won some for my parents, and I noted that one of the winners was a Californian with the name of Jesus(as in Hey-Seuss of course) who looked like one of my friends. The one from the dream shadow duel. The thought of him being gone freaked me out more than I'd like to think, so I just tried to distract myself by absorbing information about the world, it's entertainment, and my cards so I don't fuck up in a duel.

I probably shouldn't have bothered with that second one, but I couldn't help it. All work and no play has never worked out in my favor. Of course neither had all play and no work if my grades in Senior and Junior year were any indication.

Before I knew it, the exam date arrived.

* * *

I couldn't help but feel my stomach twist as Serena and I walked in a very large building. Despite my studying and previous knowledge of the game I wasn't sure I could pass the exam for Duel Academy. While there's a chance Mokuba-san would just recommend me in, I didn't want to have to rely on that. It felt like it would shame Other me.

I walked alongside the other teenagers who looked just as nervous. Serena just looked confident and wanted to get it over with. Well, I assume she was confident because of her pride, I could only tell she wanted to get this over with since I and everyone else had the same face.

I fingered my earphone that were hanging from my neck and readjusted the one in my ear when we reached a line to a table leading into a room. I needed to chill out or something. Luckily plenty of Musicians were the same in this reality. Being able to have easy-to-listen-to access to Japanese artists like Nano(not to mention Reol and One ok Rock) meant listening to songs like Magenta or Hysteria was easy and great for a distraction. Apparently she was a duelist too and used a music artist archetype deck that reminded me of her overall music style. It was actually pretty interesting to see celebrities I knew since they were all interested in Dueling in some capacity.

After giving my papers and applications, the staff pointed towards my seat and I walked over. Serena was sitting in front of me so I had a good view of her hair.

After what felt like a Millennium(ha!) the test started as all examinees were in.

The beginning questions were about as simple as could be, or at least it was for me. That was because they were about the different summoning methods, which for one reason or another all exist in this world.

I completely guessed on the ones that asked 'how' they discovered the methods, but the questions about how they worked or the ones on how to perform it successfully were incredibly easy.

There were even questions on far more theoretical sides of dueling such as Duel spirits and the creation of cards and why some worked and some didn't. They all required small essays, and honestly I wondered why a few were even there. I guess it'd end up important to know if someone believes in that type of thing or not if they run into some situation on the island.

But then I reached the hardest section. Given that cards during duels hid their effects from the other duelist without an expensive duel disk set, it was important to understand how to play your deck beforehand. This would explain why so many questions were about different types of spell and trap cards, identifying their effects from your opponent, what the timings would be for certain card effects. There was only so much information you can get during a duel and taking too long would skip your turn, not to mention reading effects would distract you from the duel.

Won't lie, some of the questions were easy, others... not so much.

For example, given that I relied almost entirely on reading card effects all the time, my knowledge of how many cards could do this or that were limited to only my decks. Hell, even when I knew what my cards could do I still read the descriptions just to make sure I wasn't misremembering them.

Boy was my lack of ability biting me in the ass.

I noted to myself(wait, that's redundant, who else could I note to during an exam), the last portion of dueling questions reminded me of the scenarios that had to be passed in one of those yugioh games. It would describe the hand, the graveyard, and the field, and the examinee would have to figure out how to successfully pull of a strategy or take out the remaining life points of the opponent.

I wish I could say I aced it, but honestly passing these things even in the games took me several tries. I was just no good with cards I've never used often. I probably took way too much time trying to pass them and I wanted to kill myself after every solution that didn't make the life points zero after my calculation.

This exam definitely shows why Duel Academies are considered Elite in the show. There's more than a thousand questions. Some multiple choice, others requiring written answers. And the timeframe of the exam left barely enough time to finish it.

Honestly the only thing that let me race through the exam was the tag force games since I've read every card in those games at least once, so I could at least make an educated guess on what the answers could be.

Except for anything involving chains. Seriously fuck those. Anything involving spell chain or trap chains and I was useless since I never used them or even understood them beyond they happen nearly at the same time.

Interestingly enough, there were also basic General ed questions, showing that while Duel Academy didn't focus on them, that they didn't brush them off like some fans liked to headcanon for fun.

Luckily the history questions were simple enough that even my Wikipedia based knowledge of Japan and the world that I wasn't too worked up about it, especially the questions about America.

The science questions gave plenty of information in the questions themselves that you could pull the answers from them, so that was a breeze too.

Math hadn't pulled anything complicated out. Since Duel Academy was the equivalent of a high school, the math difficulty wasn't past Algebra, so even for me who never went past Calculus had it easy.

English almost wasn't worth talking...

About...

...

...

...

Huh?

Oh great. I fell asleep. Again. I always can't help but take a small nap during tests like this. Even the AP exams I took in my junior and senior years weren't safe from my ability to sleep.

Usually it was never blatant. Or at least it wasn't most of the time. This time I fell asleep with my head pointing to the test. I hope nobody noticed that, well I was mostly glad Serena didn't notice because she probably would have kicked my ass. It looked like I was out of it for ten minutes or so I should be fine time length wise. Usually these quick power naps energize me enough that my pace quicken up so I could blast through to the end of tests.

Now where was I? Ah right. English. I was always perfect with English, it was real easy in school and it was easy now. Especially since it was Japanese level English, which was so basic I had to laugh.

I wasn't as genki during the Japanese portion, but luckily I did well enough on the account that it was middle school level and a combination of me knowing plenty about the Japanese language and me suddenly understanding more about Japanese beyond what little I knew. The sudden knowledge was scary, but I wasn't going to be mad about it as long as it wouldn't kill me in the future(I also really hope I didn't jinx myself or state something ironic, no matter how much Minerva told me I would be fine I was still wary).

In fact I wonder why these general questions were in another packet that we were given advice to work on last. Maybe Duel Ability trumped general knowledge of what was important in the world. Then again, this was an academy for a sport. I suppose it can somewhat be compared to certain college or university level schools like for art.

Not that I would know anything about those. I never even went to college yet.

By the time my exam was collected I had answered every question. I had double checked most of my answers and only second guessed a pretty small percentage of questions, which for a thousand plus question exam, was still a pretty significant amount. Luckily my little nap energized me like always.

I usually finish tests with time to spare, but this time I had a good fifteen minutes to wait. And that was after checking my answers.

So naturally I did what I always did in times like this and slept.

Sometimes I(and my friends) wonder how I pass my tests, but then again this test was comparatively easier than anything I went through in high school. After all, a majority of them were about a game I enjoyed playing and a minority of them were questions at the level I practically instinctively knew the answer to them. After all, while my memories of the lessons were hazy, they were still easy enough that I didn't really need to bust my brains over them. I didn't ace it, but I passed with an 80% at least.

Actually, taking this exam made me wonder about my future here, assuming I stay. Maybe I could become some sort of card designer? It was either that or a writer for games and books and such. I wonder if I need any degrees for those.

Meh. I'll deal with it when it comes to that time. Something tells me I won't shrug off my future here as easily as I did before. Or at least that's what I hope.

With the exam over I left the building with the other possible classmates and Serena. Some looked horrible, some looked confident, others just glad they can do something else not boring.

In other words, every student looked like most teenagers did after a big test. Nothing special really. The dueling exam was going to be on another day. From what I've read up about it online, they first score the written exam, and then if the results were so terribly below the requirement you wouldn't even be allowed to Duel. Of course apparently you could plea that your ability to Duel was better than your common sense(or book knowledge since that's what the exam really was. I just call it common sense since that's what any Senior in High School would think, or at least the non dumb ones anyways).

I had time to mess around at least since I doubt I failed. In fact the first thing I'm going to do is spend these two weeks playing games, reading light novels, watching anime and tv shows and movies, see if I can socialize with people on this world using my worlds common sense and mannerisms, and hang out with Serena and Rei seeing as they're my only friends.

Oh. I should probably add studying my cards and dueling others too. I wanted to enter Duel Academy since it was the easiest thing to do, but it would also probably just set my future in stone. And by that I mean let the options I want most be easier to achieve. Of course I had less selfish motives in the sense that Duel Academy is probably where some major supernatural events happen for the next few years, and I'd prefer to help out and make sure I'm still alive and the world not destroyed, something I'm sure my cards could help do.

Though when it came to making decks, there were only two things I cared about; efficiency, and aesthetics. They were completely at odds, but luckily (ha) Heart of the Cards helped with that.

* * *

It's only been a day since the written exam and I figured the smart thing to do would be to make sure I could actually duel. If I'm being honest, most of my duels against actual people never ended well. Granted that's because my friends always had stupidly overpowered cards and followed whatever the meta was while I cared more for the aesthetics, but it still counts. Hell, even when playing the tag force games against an AI I still lost pretty frequently, and if I'm forced to duel for my life or for an important video game or something, I don't really think I'll be able to retry until I win.

So I looked up dueling spots online. I could have just challenged my possible classmates after the exam, because I think everyone there looked like they wanted to duel and unwind, but I didn't want to get a reputation or anything, especially because of my 'rare' cards and/or lack of skills.

Also, I forgot my cards.

I'm trying to get rid of my real world habits. Not having a duel disk or a deck was extremely inconvenient(especially since you could hook your ID and bank to your duel disk), not to mention some people would look at you funny. It's the equivalent of forgetting your phone in the real world.

Anyways, the Internet was naturally the best place to look for something like this. Not only did the internet have porn from all over the world, it also had anything you ever needed to know.

Such as the fact that there was a large Kaiba Corp and Industrial Illusions card shop that was attached to a very large building where people duel each other. Kind of like a gym, or a building with a bunch of tennis courts. You see these types of things in other games and anime too. Like Beyblade or Custom Robo. Nothing special.

Of course that was a bit too public, not to mention I didn't want to be officially recorded. I wanted to use a mask so I could practice with some of the cards I know for a fact don't exist yet, and I doubt I'd be allowed in such an official building with a mask and a giant cape functioning as a cloak.

I definitely wasn't going to hit the Underground either. I freaking hate pain and was an amateur, no matter how good my cards were, entering that is suicide. Luckily there are plenty of alleys, parks, and shops that hold regular gatherings, one of which happens to fall upon today.

I was wearing a Blue Eyes White Dragon hoodie that was a size larger than what I would wear normally, but I'm trying not to show who I am. I even borrowed Rei's duel disk since mine is so recognizable. It completely covered by upper face and I even had a small face mask just in case.

It was a shop, not small but not incredibly huge like the KC and Ind. Illusions one. And since duelists also enjoy having fun more, some would cosplay, so me covering my face was nothing new. On the bright side, there was a lot less gender separation in interests so it wouldn't be a sausage fest. While girls could still be looked down upon in this world, it was generally, very, very, equal to them. If I had to guess, the amount of girls who like duel monsters here probably outnumbered all the girls who did in my world with just a tenth of the former.

I looked through the eyeholes of the hoodie, so my face was still mostly covered. It was like those Spider-Man or Minecraft Creeper jackets where the front would zip up, but I wasn't too confident in my enunciation so I just forewent it. I'd be annoyed if my opponent couldn't hear me.

It didn't look like anyone wanted to duel just yet. In fact they looked like they were interested in something.

"I'm totally going to enter Duel Academy! I'm sure I aced the written exam, and the practical duel is in the bag for me!" Ah, so that's it.

Given the time of year, they're probably just bemoaning Summer's End (and I curse Japan's shorter vacation time, though it was at least not like Real Japan's school year). While also somehow being excited to get back to school, especially in this guy's case. His green hair style was somewhat familiar, but I figure it's just me seeing things.

I walk up to some of the girls, not because they were girls, or because they were cute(great bonuses though) but because they were cosplaying as what I assumed would be their favorite cards in one way or another. They would be the last people to comment on my hoodie.

"Hey, who's the guy bragging? I'm new around here."

"Oh, well it's nice to meet you. My name is Kami. The braggart over there is Kura. The two of us are trying to enter Seto Kaiba's Duel Academy. Anyways, he isn't so bad, his attitude, I mean. His deck leaves a lot to be desired with how many risks he likes to take, but he's just trying to have a bit of fun right now. Most teenagers our age don't get to enter those prestigious academies. You have to be the best of the best to get in. A lot of us upcoming duelists just end up at a Major City's school if they really want to pursue dueling still. "

Oh, I think I remember that guy actually. From the tag force games. No wonder he felt familiar. Even this girl, I remember her name from those games too. That being said, it's not like Kura and Kami were very unique names.

Wait, shit, she introduced herself to me, what name do I use! Do I mention I'm going to Duel Academy too!?

"Names Rei. Nice to meet you too. I think I took the written exam in the same building as you or the other guy." Oh real smooth man. Use the name of someone you're associated with. Well, maybe it was for the best. I never did like coming up for names on the spot. Hell even playing Pokémon I used google to search up things I wanted to name my Pokémon. Then again, that's because I was narcissistic enough to use the names of Gods and Goddesses.

"Woah really? I hope we both get in." She said excitedly while her friends(well, assumed friends) congratulated me for being able to make it and wished me luck. We started some small talk and apparently they also thought about applying but the moment they remembered it was on an Island decided to apply to one of Kaiba Corps mainland Lesser Academies. We began to talk about electives and hobbies(mostly because we were on the subject of school so I started talking about how someone I knew, or rather me, had some cool electives and wondered if the duel academies would have some form of that) and even about our decks. I mostly kept them talking about their decks because it was clear they've had their decks for months or years compared to my weeks and I didn't want my inexperience to show. Of course they were happy to comply but I honestly didn't think I'd remember their decks let alone their names after the day.

Eventually I accidentally let slip that I'd never actually been to one of these because I was pretty introverted and shy about talking with others.

"Really?" One of the other girls, Lucy, I think, said surprised. The others didn't seem to think my words were right either.

"Well, I kinda just forced myself here so by the time I walked over, it was too late to turn back, y'know? Whenever I reach a point of no return in some fashion, I kind of just stop caring and do what I want to do. I mean, it's not like I hate talking to people, I'm just a bit awkward with it. I have friends, good ones, but when it comes to new people, a part of me just tenses up before I know it."

"Well, maybe you'll grow out of it? And anyways, you're pretty easy to talk to. We can tell you're a friendly guy who likes to have fun like anyone else."

How the hell did they get that from our like, twenty minute talk? Is this a women thing?

Man. I was so terrible with genuine compliments too. I wonder if my hood is blocking my cheeks. I don't think I'm a blusher, but my friends(those ones girls too by the way) like to point fun at my red cheeks whenever I legitimately get embarrassed. Which doesn't happen very often.

"Um. Thanks. By the way, do things always take so long until we all duel?"

"Oh. Well usually we're a bit faster getting to it, but the upcoming school year always gets us talking a bit more. You should head to a duelist gathering on Halloween, now those are pretty interesting." Luigi said. Wait, I mean Lucy.

"We can duel right now if you want." A male voice chipped in. Where have I heard it before...

"Rei right? Kami said we're gonna be classmates; so why don't we duel right now for fun? I'm always up for a duel against someone new, especially with the practicals coming soon."

Every time someone calls me Rei my heart pounds. I hate lying like this when they're so nice, not to mention I don't want to be caught. Plus, constantly being called another's name pisses me off. I wonder if this is what Sora and Roxas feel.

"Sure. I don't mind. I came here to see how others measured up." It was only after the sentence came out that I realized I was stupid, here, where these people are connected deeply to their pride, it wasn't easy to shrug off an insult, perceived or not.

This was proven with some narrowing eyes turning to me and the murmuring of the crowd. I decided to ignore it and focused on my beating heart. This was it. My true First Duel. My dream shadow Duel doesn't count since I wasn't exactly lucid.

My right hand rises up to my hood, pulling it to reassure myself my head is covered. At the same time, Rei's duel disk extends. It was just the standard duel disk, like the one at the end of the yugioh series and the first one Judai had before Duel Academy, but I still thought that powering it up was cool.

"Duel!" My opponent shouted out.

A second after I said, not exclaimed, was, "Duel."

Unfortunately while it wasn't my intent, I felt like I wasn't getting along with this guy given the look he was giving me.

I took a look at my hand. It didn't look half bad. I wasn't sure what cards he used or if he ran any anti summon cards, so I'll have to-

"I'll go first! I'll play Ancient Rules and summon my Zoa! Then I'll play Fiend's Sanctuary and sacrifice the summoned Metal Fiend Token to play Beast of Talwar!"

You're fucking kidding me right? A 2600 attack monster and a 2400 attack monster on the first turn? Still, if he had waited for me to go, my life points could've taken a hit. Unfortunately for him, the deck I intended on using today was one I actually knew how to play even in my world. But I'm glad he didn't drop any trap cards. The two Fiends were intimidating enough. Either way, nothing would be accomplished waiting. Although that superior look he was giving me was beginning to piss me off.

"My draw."

The card I drew was Pot of Greed, so I knew what I was going to do. I already had a polymerization(or Fusion) and a de-fusion, so if I had any luck, I'd grab some more monsters to fuse. I only had one trap card that would stall me a turn if this didn't work out. Even so, I really hoped this would work, stalling and defending was not at all my priority with this deck.

"You're way too quick to act." I didn't shout, not wanting to seem too cocky, though I wasn't sure it worked all that well. Oh god please let this work. I only had one monster in my hand as is, but hopefully drawing some more cards will help.

"I play Elemental Hero Bubbleman, and with his effect I draw two cards, now I play Pot of Greed and add another two." This...this was actually a really good hand to turn the tides. Maybe I was being too nervous for no reason?

"I activate the spell card Fake Hero! It allows me to special summon one Hero from my hand, and I'll bring out Stratos! With his effect I'll bring an elemental hero to my hand. Now I'll play Fusion!" Oh I really wasn't sure what hero to use but I didn't have a lot of time to think. Good thing the extra deck didn't really have limitations(which would explain why Judai always had a monster to fuse). "I use my two monsters on the field to summon the _The Twisting Hero_! _Descend! Elemental Hero Great Tornado!"_ The green cloaked hero glared with his red eye at the fiends.

"2-2800 attack points!" The other guy responded.

"That's not all, he also halves the attack of all monsters on your field. But I haven't ended this just yet. I use the card I drew from Bubbleman-Fusion, and use the two monsters I got from Pot of Greed! _I fuse Elemental Hero Heat and Lady Heat to bring forth the Hero of Fire! Elemental Hero Nova Master!_ I attack with both my monsters!" 1600 and 1300 damage from Great Tornado and Nova Master was crushing considering he summoned two high caliber monsters. "But that's not all! I use De-Fusion on Nova Master!" The red themed heroes joined the field at Nova Master's exit. With Heat's added attack and Lady Heat's effect, he would have no chance to save his life points. "Heat! Lady Heat! Attack!"

The two flew forward with fire covered fists and knocked what's his name over.

"WOOOOOOAAAAAAH!" The explosion of the crowd made me jump.

"Holy crap he ended this in one turn!"

"I thought for sure Kura had this in the bag! His high level monsters combined with Ancient Rules are ruthless!"

"This new guy's amazing."

"He went overkill on Kura too!"

I wondered what they meant by that before tensing up in realization. I forgot that casual duels outside of tournaments usually held only 4000 life points unless otherwise stated. I brought Heat and Lady Heat assuming I would have another turn. Heat's effect increased his attack three times due to the amount of monsters I had, and Lady Heat would have done some serious burn damage with four monsters on the field.

Still, a one turn Duel was nowhere near the amount of experience I needed if I wanted to pass my practicals. I was lucky this time. I needed more. More practice. More victory.

"Anyone else." My words seemed to stop the crowd for some reason. They began to look at each other, seemingly waiting for a response. They were afraid of going next after a showing like that.

"I'll have a go." One of the girls, a brunette with glasses, seemed to stand forward as if it was an accomplishment. I say that because she couldn't help but give a flushed smile as the crowd cheered her on. Well, I don't really blame her. Only a true introvert wouldn't smile at a crowd cheering for them. In another world I'd say they were cheering her on because of her Tour Guide from the Underworld costume. In this one, they praised her courage and wanted to wish her good luck.

I gathered my deck and placed it back in the disk. Using the Omni Elemental Heroes was somewhat cheap, or rather, using Heroes in general was pretty cheap I admit, but kindness and aesthetics wouldn't get me anywhere if I wanted to learn how to duel for my exam and for the future. I could use my fun decks later on when I have less worries.

Besides, if the GX manga taught me anything, it was that a duelist had to be ruthless, and had to have a strong deck. Although the latter was just my own take on it since the anime took more liberties in their decks and duels.

My other decks, a Familiars Possessed and a ritual deck based off of Demise and Ruin, were both decks I wanted to focus on as well, the former was much weaker than the other two, but I thought struggling with it would be good for me, since the archetype was completed and had even more support in this world rather than my own I couldn't curb my desire to use it. The latter was just as powerful as my Heroes but would be limited as well due to my only being able to activate Demise's effects to clear the field only once. (I should look into more life point gaining trap and spell cards for that deck)

Oops. My mind was wandering off again. I ended up staring the other girl down. She looks a lot less confident for some reason though. I readjust my hood unnecessarily and laid my left hand on my waist since it was getting pretty tired.

"Duel." I started it off this time since I was late before and tried to raise my voice so she could tell I was taking her seriously. For some reason she flinched but activated her duel disk as well.

I didn't really remember her name, but I believe that she said her deck was full of equip cards and Warriors. However her deck lacked what many pros did-an Ace Monster. She placed all her hopes on spell cards. Too bad I didn't like using XYZ monsters or I would have brought out my Noble Knights and showed her how important an ace was, especially considering she didn't have any cards to defend her equip spells if she equips so many of them in a row. Luckily for her I don't run any card negates since they aren't my style. I drew my cards and took the proper dueling stance.

"I'll go first." She looked pretty nervous so I figured she'd feel better if I couldn't attack. For some reason she shifted in place, not at all relaxed.

My hand had two monsters, one field spell, and two stall traps. Good enough for me. No fusions, but I had more than a few copies. As long as it wasn't Parallel World Fusion I would be good for a few turns. A normal Fusion spell would help only if I still had monsters on my field or hand, but Miracle Fusion would be completely perfect.

The card I drew ended up being Hero Signal. I'll just bring out Woodsman than. I don't run my The Earth given how nonexistent I thinks it's supposed to be but the two fusion material for it are pretty effective on their own.

"I'll summon Elemental Hero Voltic in defense mode and place a card face down." Not the most impressive move after the last spectacle but it couldn't be helped.

"I'll summon Marauding Captain and with his special ability summon Freed the Brave Wanderer!"

Seriously?! What's with the double summons? Well, at least these aren't as strong as the last swarm. And I really don't have much room to talk with a Hero deck with so many ways to fusion in a row. Still, I had to be careful not to let this run too long with me on the defensive. I didn't have too many cards that would get rid of the back row.

"I activate the Equip Magic Magic Blade - Ice Sword to Marauding Captain, boosting his attack by 500 points. Then I add Legendary Sword into the mix, boosting his attack by another 300!"

Smart move, boosting the only monster I could attack.

"Now Freed! Attack Elemental Hero Voltic!" With only 1500 defense Voltic stood no chance. "Now go Marauding Captain!"

"Not so fast! By destroying Voltic, you activated my trap card Hero Signal. Now I can bring out a Hero, and I choose Elemental Hero Forestman."

With an equal attack and defense, her warrior was forced to back down.

After placing a card face down she ended her turn. I'm positive that it's a trap to stop me from attacking or a trap that will boost her monster's attack.

"Draw!" Elemental Hero Ocean...well then, "I activate Forestman's effect and add a Fusion to my hand! I use it to fuse Featherman and Ocean from my hand into Elemental Hero Absolute Zero!" The water attribute Hero burst into the field in a cloud of ice. "Absolute Zero, attack!"

"I activate the quick play spell Rush Recklessly!" Absolute Zero was pierced by The Legendary Sword and I lost 200 life points.

I bit my lip before shouting out. "You've activated Absolute Zero's effect! Now that he's removed from the field you lose all your monsters." A cold breeze entrapped her monsters in ice before crumbling away, clearing her field. "I'll play one card face down and end my turn."

On the bright side of all this, my opponent began to look even calmer. I felt bad that she looked pretty nervous.

"I summon Dark Blade and equip him with the Wicked-Breaking Flamberge - Baou!" I noticed that her new equip spell was already in her hand. I was lucky she didn't equip that card to her Marauding Captain or I might have been in some trouble. "Now Dark Blade destroy Forestman!"

"Sorry but I'll be taking back those life points from before, with a bonus." My trap card flipped up to reveal Draining Shield. A transparent barrier stopped the black knight from destroying Forestman. My life points also increased by 2300.

The girl frowned before placing another card face down. The two probable traps were beginning to worry me, but worrying wouldn't get me anywhere.

"I'll add another Fusion to my hand and place a card face down and end my turn."

The girl smiled as she summoned another monster. Ben Kei. He had low attack but his effect allowed him to attack as many times as equip cards attached to him. She revealed one of the cards I thought was a trap, Horn of the Unicorn, and equipped it to him alongside Fusion Sword Murasame Blade.

Why would she put an equip spell face down? Hmm. Maybe it was to bluff me out. And if I had destroyed it she would have just gotten it back.

Still, given Ben Kei's effect, I'll be done for if he begins to attack. The extra 1500 attack placed him at 2000.

"Go Dark Blade!"

Dark blade didn't move at all.

"W-what? Dark Blade attack Forestman!"

I gave her a few seconds to notice my revealed trap before deciding to just speak up as she didn't notice. "Hero Ring here is an equip card in its own right. Any face up monsters with 1900 or more attack cannot target Forestman." And that means that as long as he was in defense mode he was safe.

It was only after she gripped her cards harder that I realized the crowd was talking.

"Man look at him. He's just stopping her at every turn."

"I thought he was done for."

"Why isn't he doing anything?"

"Is he screwing with her?"

Whatever. I couldn't help what they were thinking. No matter how untrue it all was.

I had a duel to finish. "Draw! And because it's my turn, Forestman gives another Fusion spell card." The drawn card was Captain Gold. Well, this wasn't ideal, but I can make do.

"I activate the Field Magic Skyscraper!" I placed the card in the duel disk and waved my arm at the same time buildings began to sprout between and around us. While it was once day, not it was nighttime.

"Now I summon Captain Gold onto the field! And With this Field Spell, every time an Elemental Hero with less attack battles with your monster, mine gain an extra 1000 attack points! So Gold is free to deal you some damage!"

I sent Captain Gold to attack Dark Blade dealing 800 damage.

I ended my turn.

"I play the equip spell Cursed Armaments to Captain Gold!" Captain Gold? Why would she do something like that? "Now he loses 600 attack!" Oh, that explains a lot. "Ben Kei attack!"

Captain Gold tried to get away but was pursued and defeated. Luckily Forestman was safe, but ended up being equipped with those Cursed Armaments. If that card stayed on the field than even all the Fusions in the world wouldn't help me now. As it was, if Forestman switches to attack, that's a pretty large amount of damage waiting for me even with Hero Ring.

I didn't bother announcing my draw. But I looked and saw Clayman. This wasn't great, but with a Fusion already with me, even Gaia would help. Still, with the amount of attacks I can get hit with, keeping him in my hand might not be for the best. "I place a monster face down and end my turn." I might be able to fusion, but I wanted to be both aggressive and defensive. I couldn't be sure that The Shining or Gaia would live through her turn if summoned. Gaia might have been able to win the duel, but I wasn't sure off the top of my head and I didn't want to spend too long thinking or risk losing if wrong.

She drawed and summoned a monster, the card she just drew. "Command Knight here increases the attack of all my monsters by 400."

My next turn passed by without me adding anything to the field.

The same couldn't be said for her. "I use the magic card Stop Defense on your Forestman!"

Shit.

She attack Forestman with Command Knight, dealing damage, while Ben Kei went for a direct attack after destroying Clayman.

"I discard a card from my hand and use its special effect to summon Forestman in defense!"

My remaining life points were safe due to a special little card I added to my deck, one that I didn't have to worry about being out of place or too rare. Kuriborhn. The cute saintly kuriboh Pokémon- I mean, monster. Its second effect was mostly useless, but I added the card anyways due to his urging. Plus, kuribohs were useful for stalling.

Also, with how cute the Kuriboh relative was I couldn't help but let him have a place in the different decks.

I was weak to cute things that could fight back. Go figure.

My life points were safe for now, but I really needed a card to turn the tides.

At least I didn't have to worry about my monsters' attack decreasing due to my last turn.

The card I ended up drawing was Fusion Birth. In my world it was never printed, but it was here. It held the blue and light purple colors of Fusion. Talk about a real destiny draw, if it works out.

Well, not like I could do anything else at this point. "I activate Fusion Birth. First I'll send the top five cards from my deck to the graveyard." Sparkman, Miracle Fusion, Parallel World Fusion, Voltic Spear, (please be a monster-please be a monster) and KING OF THE SWAMP YES. "Since two of the cards were fusion materials, I can summon an Elemental Hero."

The girl stiffened up and I couldn't contain my inner weeb. (In my defense though, all duelists were weebs in one way or another)

" _Warrior of electricity, merge together with the encompassing king! Fusion Summon! Light the city with your hope and Spread your wings for Justice! Shining Flare Wingman_!"

The white metal clad hero indeed shined the dark city. "And with Seven Heroes in the graveyard, Shining Flare Wingman gets an increase of 2100!" With a total of 4600 attack, it didn't look like she had much of a chance if that face down card didn't help.

"Shining Flare Wingman, attack Ben Kei." I said calmer than I wanted to. I kinda wanted to shout it out and do a happy dance but I guess it would make her feel shitty. Plus if it didn't work out I'd just look stupid.

My Hero flew past Ben Kei who was destroyed by the glowing winds dealing 2200 damage. Then SFWm's effect dealt 500 damage.

I couldn't see the crowd, but I did hear them going crazy at my move.

"Holy crap that attack power is ridiculous!" It absolutely is.

"Is this what he was aiming for!?" Hahaha of course not. I just went with the flow of my cards and my inability to calculate off the top of my head.

"Look at the way bided his time for the comeback!" Now that's somewhat true.

"He turned a disadvantage into an advantage!" I guess I sorta did. She did destroy most of my monsters after all.

Now even if she puts Command Knight or another monster in defense, my H - Heated Heart will finish this off.

She also looked like she knew this wasn't a favorable situation. But the card she drew made her look relieved, so I was worried it was a mirror force or negate attack. If it was magic cylinders I was fucked. Because outside of Masked Hero Acid(wasn't in this deck combination btw), I had no way of dealing with Traps and Spells.

"I equip Command Knight with Mist Body and switch him to defense mode!"

Oh. That was relieving. "I activate H - Heated Heart and attack Command Knight! Because of its effect my monster deals piercing damage! Finish this!"

"N-no way!"

SFWm shot a light beam that went through the cloudy body of the knight and slammed into the girl, finishing her off.

"REI! REI! REI!" The crowd chanted my fake name. I couldn't help but smirk and raise my duel disk covered arm making them cheer even louder(I was really regretting the fake name, maybe I should have sucked up the fact I would get a reputation, but at least if the lie comes open I can just pretend they misheard me). The field spell wore away and I saw Kula or whatever look less sore about being one turn killed by me after another victory by me.

Maybe it was the adrenaline from two wins and the crowd cheering, but I couldn't help but want to continue. Especially since practicing was my goal. I may be winning now, but I could easily start to lose I'm sure.

"Anyone else!"

I looked around and saw some nervous looks.

I knew I put up a good show, but I didn't want them to not want to duel me. I frowned, and some people looked incredibly nervous and afraid as if I had just asked them to explain how Dark Magician should be used in front of the King of Games.

Why did they look so nervous?

"Come on. There's no point in being a duelist if you're not gonna try an overcome a challenge. I've won twice, but that doesn't mean I'm perfect. I'll take you on in pairs if that will boost your confidence." I mostly said that hoping they would understand that I didn't want to stop and that I was just really lucky for my first duels, but my choice of words may have screwed me over as an older couple who looked like college students stepped forward. Oh shit.

"Duel!"

"D-Duel."

I need to choose my words better.

* * *

In the end. I spent five hours at the gathering before leaving to grab some food.

So far my record was 45-9 in wins to losses with my Elemental Hero deck. After a particularly bad OTK against that Kuma guy again nobody seemed to want to duel me anymore and were just content to watch.

I felt pretty bad, so I switched over to my Familiars possessed deck and told them what it was in advance, alongside me believing it was a weaker deck than my heroes.

That seemed to do the trick and I began to get more duels. I even tag dueled with some people like that blue haired girl. So with my familiars it was a pretty clean 23-17. Though most of that wasn't One on One. Anyways, I don't want to think about it. I already know I still need practice with non Fusions or non rituals anyways.

It occurred to me that with a record like that, I was going to have to switch up what monsters I use during the entrance exam. There were a few students that were going to DA that had come by when word spread out about an unbeatable duelist that was going to DA and it would be troublesome if the Omni Heroes gave me away especially to those two students that were there from the beginning. In this case my little Rei name stunt backfired.

Good thing I had dozens of decks still. The fake name was so I could hide the fact I had a bunch of decks, but in this case it let me use other decks without being called out in a different fashion. I think.

Pretty good day and it wasn't even lunch. Well, it was a little past lunch, but it wasn't dinner!

I grabbed some Fast Food(and boy who woulda thought that some brands were universal) and sat down inside, wanting to cool down.

"That was quite the show you put up."

I looked up wondering who would be rude enough to actually sit down with a stranger especially in japan before legitimately choking on my food in surprise.

That multi colored hair was as crazy now as I always thought it was, but he made it look good.

"O-omae-!"

He placed his finger to his lips and smiled before eating his own burger.

I drank my soda while trying to calm my suddenly fast beating heart.

"I see that you know who I am. Mokuba-kun asked me if I could visit you. I've recently returned to Domino for some charity work."

I merely nodded while trying not to focus on my pounding heart.

"This may come across as a surprise, but I've actually heard of you, from, let's say mutual friends which is why I came to visit you."

"?"

He looked over and I realized he placed a deck facing up. The first card was familiar, on the basis that I've been using it for the last few hours.

"Kuribohrn here doesn't often come out to talk, but he seemed rather insistent on me checking up on you."

I couldn't help but give the little bugger a look. A heads up would have been nice! Oh god I must have looked like such a chuunibyou not to mention just arrogant in general.

"Now I thought I'd let you know that the spirits have informed me what happened to your memories, as well as the duties they're giving you."

I couldn't help but look away from him. Why was this happening? Also, what spirits? And what did they say?

Wait. "Are my cards connected to some of yours?"

He chuckled. "Yes and no. They are aware of what happens in the other dimensions. So your presence was not something to be overlooked. But in some cases, like Kuriborhn here, because my bond with them isn't very strong, they often comes and go as they please. I expect that once your inner potential grows you will find that your spirits are still trying to connect with you even in this world."

"Wait, does that mean I'm going to be constantly hounded by the Spirits in this world too?" I heard a chime of different echoed Kuri's which answered my question. "Neat?"

The King of Games finished his food. "Kuribohrn and the others' mentioned that you are trying to prepare yourself for Kaiba's practical exam for one of his academies."

"Um. Yes."

"Well in that case, why don't you follow me? My friends will join me at a private place to catch up. Why don't you test your skills against us? And afterwards, we can talk about your...let's say situation."

I wipe my hands on a napkin. I wasn't done with my burger but I couldn't bring myself to eat right now. Also I'm not too sure it'll be me testing my skills and more sure it'll be me losing. But I suppose the sting of defeat is something I'll get used to eventually.

Also I really wanted to meet them.

Just as I affirmed that I would come with him, I realized that the entire restaurant has been staring at me, well, my company.

"Ano-do you think we could go?" I felt shy though the older man just laughed. He placed the deck into my hands and motioned me to follow.

I really hope I don't make a fool of myself later.

* * *

I made a complete and utter fool of myself.

I knew I didn't have much of a chance to win against the King of Games, but getting my ass handed to me 1-59 was really stinging. I even pulled out the cards I told myself not to use in order to avoid the attention and he still crushed me.

HELL, he freaking took my Familiars deck and the Kuriboh deck and completely dominated me! How does any of that make sense!

Even against his other friends my record was about three to four wins to about thirty losses. I only beat Jonouchi once due to his luck and the other wins aren't worth mentioning since they were due to some of them not being Pro duelists.

My pride is hurt. Badly.

It was a...good experience I suppose. Outside of meeting them anyways.

I'm not too sure I'll ever want to duel against Yugi again. Even his dueling presence kind of made me scared that I screwed up my turns.

I wonder if my presence affected the other duelists from before?

Nah, I'm not that good.

Still, on the bright side Yugi handed me some temporary hair dye and a mask. The former for when I complimented his hair and mentioned wanting to change my hair color for awhile now(I dyed my hair back in high school but it's been a long time since then) and one of japan's signature "I'm either sick or don't want people to see my lower face" mask because I wanted to get more experience without getting any rumors associated with me.

I don't know where the mask came from but apparently the former was for when he wanted to explore without any admirers.

Made sense to me.

Still, it was really dark out now. The half moon peering down at the bright city was a nice site. There were still plenty of people out and about too.

This probably wasn't going to be a good idea, but I was going to go to another dueling site. After getting as trounced as I did, I needed to reaffirm my skill.

No, maybe that wasn't being honest.

I guess I just wanted to remind myself that I can still win.

I shook my head. I shouldn't think like that. I looked down to my phone as it's been ringing. "Yo Rei!"

"Don't "Yo" me! Where are you! You shouldn't be out so late! I told you not to be like my sister!"

I rolled my eyes. "Rei. It's been a month since I've been out of the hospital, three months since I've woken up, six months since I've been found. I'm going to need to sharpen up my duel skills if I'm gonna make it into DA."

"Then why didn't you bring me with you! I'm so bored what with sis spending the day dueling a bunch of would be classmates. She told me to just stay here since I would bother her or something."

Honestly I just didn't want to be associated with her. As in depending on what cards I'll end up using I don't want either; A-questions from Rei, or B-rumors that could connect Rei and I with super rare cards. Although Serena seemed to have the same intent, in the sense she wants to duel away from her sibling and I.

Well, Rei did seem pretty worried. But I really didn't want any-

"Alright, I'll send the location of this dueling park. I'm on the way now so I don't have to wait in line."

Well, like I said before, I was weak to cute things that fought back. I'm very bad at saying no to girls.

Well, anyone really, but it made me feel better if I pretend it's just girls.

I wasn't really sure if a thirteen year old following a fifteen year old at night was a good idea but Domino had nearly no crime.

Well, this world in general didn't have much crime. On the bright side, I wasn't twenty anymore. Otherwise I'd totally get my ass locked in jail.

"Oh! That's super close to the house. Just let me turn off your PC and I'll be there right now!"

"Ya, I chose it because it had an announcer and it was close to my-wait, are you in my house? And on my PC?"

"Yes?" She said as if wondering what the problem was.

"How did you even get in?!"

"Oh, I've had a key copy since forever. Anyways, should I bring my Lightsworns? Want me to grab any decks?"

The way she shrugged that off concerns me. Why does she even have a copy?

"Ugh. No it's fine. I mostly just want to practice. The Lightsworns are a bad match up with my Heroes in a tag duel. And I don't need any other deck. But oh boy do I have a story for you when the night is over."

"What story?"

I couldn't help but smile at what her reaction and what other people's reactions would be.

"Well, it's not my proudest moment, but it's a great story. But like I said, I'll bring it up later."

The time it took for me to get to the park was about fifteen minutes, longer than I expected. I looked around for Rei and called her on my phone.

Suddenly I was pulled by my arm and I was about to rip it away before noticing it was Rei with a hat that she forced her hair in.

"C'mon! I saved you a spot! You're up to Duel now!"

"What? Ugggggh I'm already tired from walking here." I really need a license. I wonder if I can get a duel runner?

"Don't complain! And you better not lose! If you don't want to duel with me, at least give me a show!"

She pushed me into a little set up away from the gathered fans of duels. There was a crowd in some bleachers overlooking what looked like a dip in the level of ground from a skating park.

"Oh, Yo Shiki-kun! Good to see you again. Saotome-kun explained everything already. You just go out there and have fun." The man said as he left to talk to the crowd.

I looked at Rei who knew what I was going to ask. "We've gone here a lot since it's close to our neighborhood. We aren't really close to Mizusuhi-san, but he knows us pretty well."

Rei pushed me down into a ramp. "Anyways. Just go out there and have fun! I'm sure you'll do just fine on the practical exam." She gave me a thumbs up and shooed me away.

Geez, she sure was pushy.

Still, this was the perfect opportunity to see how I duel under a literal spotlight. Since I've confirmed my Heroes were the ones I'm both the best and comfortable with I should spend one last night with them.

"And thus walks in our two duelists! First we have Masaru! He's here to improve his dueling skills for the Duel Academy Practical Exam and is on a winning streak!"

Another DA soon to be student? C'mon what is with this luck? Maybe it's literally the universe or something trying to screw with my plan to stay on the DL in the exam?

"And next we have a mysterious duelist here to crush his opponents for fun! Clad in a Blue Eyes Hoodie, show some love for this challenger!"

Oi, with a description like that...I look over to Rei who has a teasing look on her face as she sticks her tongue out at me. Seriously Rei that description makes me sound like an asshole. Which, granted, isn't wrong. But it's not as if I want people to know that.

The announcer went on to flip a coin and call the results. After a few seconds I called out that I would go second. I enjoy attacking after all. Plus my heroes were more suited to attack most of the time.

Oh look, he's making his move.

"I activate the Field Spell Gaia Force!"

A forest began to spring up from the ground and in the background an incredibly large tree that partially blocked out a fake sun stood out to me.

"Masaru starts out with a field spell to power up his monsters!"

"Now I summon Karate Man and equip him with Big Bang Shot!" The other teenager struck the same pose as his monster.

Wow, they really did look right together. Bona fide partners if I've ever seen them.

Looks like this one'll be interesting. Karate mans effect would be dangerous next turn.

Well, not that particularly worried. I really, really hope that face down card he just placed down wouldn't stop my summons. Negates were the worst to deal with.

"I play Fake Hero allowing me to special summon Elemental Hero Stratos! With his effect I get to add a Hero to my hand, and I choose and normal summon..." I look at my hand and then at the spell card I was about to play. I wanted to take advantage of the field Spell, but I suppose this works just as well. "Masked Hero Fountain!"

The blue themed hero landed and water sprung forth. The Masked Hero whose torrents shielded the weak crossed his arms towards the karate geeks.

"Now I play Mask Change II! With this I'm allowed to bring out another hero using Fountain after discarding! _Torrential Warrior, Corrode the defenses of the enemy in newly donned armor, Henshin! Masked Hero Acid!_ " Fountain's mask changed and paved the way for his suit to cover his tanned body in purple. The water transformed hero pointed his weapon at the duelist. "When he's summoned, all spells and traps on your field are destroyed! Acid Rain!"

The shocked face on this other guy made me feel smug. I had Edgeman in my hand, so the Necrodarkman I discarded would come in handy next turn.

Ah, how I love a good stomping.

 _/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/_

Rei later freaked out about as much as expected of the news that I got crushed by a bunch of celebrities. ("That's incredible! You remember that's super incredible right!? It's insane!?")

I really didn't like describing how I got my ass kicked, but describing how cool or strong the monsters were was free game.

Serena told me off for losing so much, and not so subtly hinted about making sure she was there if I ever meet them again.

I decided against mentioning I had Joey- I mean Jonouchi and Yugi's numbers. Neither of them were the type to badger me about them, but I knew that they would let it slip somehow. Probably during a duel I'm having against someone and they're on the sidelines, the two of them held me on a small sort of pedestal that they would mention it as a compliment but it would just be a drag for other people to know.

Speaking of a drag, today I decided to join Serena in her dueling other DA hopefuls. I told her my reasonings for why I wasn't going to use my Lightlords or my Heroes, and while she thought that I shouldn't care about getting a reputation, she approved of my desire to be able to play with other great decks.

Serena apparently beat all the Hopefuls yesterday at her own tourney, and this time they're going to have a tag duel tournament, which is where I come in, and why I'm coming in, seeing as Serena honestly doesn't have any friends at all(or at least, she's only friendly with classmates, but friends with me).

I figured I could take things easy and pull out my Fire Fist and Six Samurai, but I eventually realized if we lose Serena will be unbearable, so I'd just use an edited version of my Heroes. Either pure Masked, or Pure Elemental.

In the end, Serena still couldn't help but press her questions about my reluctance, and for the first time, we came to blows...

* * *

Now I'm sure people won't have a very high opinion of the SIOC but that's okay because he's going to grow. Even his decks will begin to see more variety as time goes on as he has much less reason to hide his cards. This first chapter is meant to showcase his personality(through his own eyes) so some flaws of his are mostly subtle. For example, he has a high focus on victory and tries to brush aside his losses and excuses them. You'll also notice that the details aren't very vivid in the beginning, this is due to the carefree nature of the duels and his skills, he doesn't really think beyond the basics. As for the Heroes, well, they're my favorite so they're getting a lot of focus for the first few chapters but I'm going to have it so every few duels with the Heroes get equaled up with duels using other decks.

Characters will have a mix of their anime and manga decks like I said. For example Manjoume will have both the Ojamas and a dragon deck. This is because both paths lead to similar lessons. L&D dragon will show that his pride and power are warranted, but will lead to him being arrogant while also wanting to prove his own power. But the ojamas will show him that power and strength isn't cut and dry and can come from others/bonds. This will lead to a more lighthearted but sometimes still as quiet as the manga Manjoume. And Judais deck will be a cool mixture that I don't want to spoil just yet.

Feel free to recommend good yugioh gx fics that you might think I need to take pointers from. State of the Meta, CCC path to the King, The fifth factor (though not a gx story) Hiyuusha(author), Higuchiman's oneshots(author), and cypsiman2's gx stories(author) are going to be very strong examples of how I will shape the fic both similarly and differently. For example none of them really shape the world of Yugioh in the same vein I am(I think) which is something I want to focus on. I will be shaping the world as a very much REAL world so lines like in SotM where people treat dueling as only a card game will be sparse because like it was noted in the chapter, dueling is its own thing by this point(for example nobody thinks fights/duels are odd in martial arts/supernatural/fantasy worlds and nobody would ever think Pokémon/digimon battles are weird either, even in the real world Wrestling/MMA/Boxing is not seen as weird) likewise despite what it looks like on the surface DUELING IS VERY MUCH MAGICAL in its own right. And if anyone has read the CCC yugioh fic then I'm going to be different in the sense that moments like "wait this is Japan why do we speak English" or "sempai is too old school and polite" won't exist because it just won't make sense here. On a meta level you can consider this world a mix of GX/ArcV/Vrains and the real world. GX because that's the setting, the last few yugioh series because it has elements of the previous series, and the real world in the sense that things actually have an explanation(like cards being made out of nowhere is legitimately a thing that can happen because there are worlds full of legitimate Duel Spirits and people research it)

I've also rewatched the different series for this so I'm sure I'll eventually bring a healthy dosage of long but not too long Duels like they've become lately. I'll be keeping things mostly GX level with 5ds level for really strong duels because if you pay attention to the duels there's a big difference. But that doesn't mean OTKs won't happen either. And by the way, for some reason people have a really big mistaken(or warped) view on yugioh and their duels because they associate it too much with real life(like state of the meta). That being said, nobody wants Duels like Vrains or real life where a single turn takes twenty minutes.

Hell, Part of the reason I'm throwing in more extra deck monsters is because like it or not, they're a pretty big symbol behind the "Power" of duels and such. There is actually an in story reason as to all the summoning methods exist, but the meta reason is basically so that if my character uses post GX decks which is rare in a gx SI it can be more often rather than not.

So as for the chapter, yes despite what I said in the beginning I never quite showed my character outwardly struggling or even losing, as I said a few paragraphs before, that's on purpose for now. I also put in Serena not to just add a character but instead to connect with the last arc. Now as for Rei, I totally upped her age for a meta reason(I wanted to) but I'm going to have her do important things rather than be there and whatnot as a result of my meta decision. Nobody will get paired up romantically but ships get teased not for the same or pleasure of it, but because the romantic feelings are important to the characters and they are teenagers. They won't be at the forefront of course, for example Asuka won't care about how she looks, but may find herself thinking about it around Judai, and I'll be doing this type of stuff because understanding Love(romantic or not) is important to growing up, which is an ending theme of GX and an overall subtle theme in this story.

The meta reason for my name being what it is- I went with a symbolic name.

Card Modifications/OC cards

None


	2. Chapter 2

LtD2

Just a little note, duels are still meant to be written somewhat sketchy details wise, as the OC gets more used to dueling, he will think about details more(monster attack and defense points, life point subtractions and additions, etc) The second duel has less details than the first because he doesn't see a point in thinking about life points as he's sure of his victory.

Chapter start

* * *

 _I blinked as my vision was misty, as if someone had taken my glasses away._

 _I blinked more to try and clear up my sight. I saw two large figures in front of me, with plenty of smaller ones around it. And by that, I mean it's like a pair of elephants surrounded by humans._

 _Which may have been my guess(not really) if my sight hadn't adjusted and shown me it was the Lightsworns._

 _Well, I assume it was them, I recognize Judgement and Punishment Dragon, but not the rest._

 _A girl with Brownish/Orangish hair approached me with a sad smile._

 _"Greetings fine sir." She said jokingly._

 _I couldn't hold back the snort._

 _I'm definitely no fine sir, and this is definitely no dream._

 _"You catch on quite fast." She said with a smile. "What gave it away?"_

 _Dreams and reality have a pretty distinct feel to them. And right now it's leaning toward the latter more._

 _"You would be correct then. My apologies at both our actions and my blunt explanation, but my clan and I had pulled you and many of your counterparts from the different dimensions in order to help our master against a threat."_

 _Uh. No problem. Best to rip the Band-Aid off I suppose._

 _Still, let's go one by one here, my counterparts from another dimension?_

 _"Yes, all who live do not exist in simply one world, a fact you have both read many times."_

 _Oh so you know about that..._

 _She giggled. "You needn't worry, it is a harmless hobby. As for the dimensions, while a few of them are quite similar, as that was the case for our master and a few of your counterparts, but as you have figured some of them are quite different, as that is the case with you."_

 _I'll get back to that dimension business soon. Soooo, how did your master run into that thing anyways?_

 _"Our master had quite the misfortune...alongside everyone else who had been on the same ship as him. Our master had fought long and hard, enduring more than everyone on that ship combined...but it was not enough."_

 _"We used an ancient spell that would bring you and your counterparts from many dimensions together in a fight against a….demon of sorts...however the realm interfered with our spell. Rather than all of you working together to win safely, he was allowed to pick you off one by one."_

 _I frown. Was that why I dueled something so many times? No, it wasn't me, but memories from my counterparts._

 _"With each duel, your counterparts weakened him more and more, in his anger at not having the upper hand he sacrificed more power, and alone, your counterparts could not have won. He broke the ancient rules in his desire to win, and while punished harshly with the loss of his power, enough that he could no longer consume souls, it was not enough for him to surrender fully."_

 _Then why did I survive? I don't even think I did anything noteworthy. I wouldn't even call myself a duelist like the other counterparts probably were. I mean, I was just a normal guy, much as it pained me to admit how unremarkable I am._

 _"Indeed, on the surface it may seem like a foolish choice, but your dimension is special, those who live in it often connect spiritually with other dimensions, which is why you'll often see other worlds closely related to your media. Those 'authors' unknowingly see visions of other dimensions and are often in the position to spread the stories, which also serve to strengthen the ties between your dimension, and the rest."_

 _I guess that makes sense. I mean, I'm not too smart so I'll just accept the dumbed down explanation she purposely gave._

 _"The reason why we brought you as well was due to your spiritual power, which was equal to your counterparts combined. The connections you made with other duel spirits merely strengthened what was already there. And when the demon had defeated your counterparts, he tried to consume their strength in order to replenish his own, but they instead merged with you to keep him weak."_

 _I suppose that's actually impressive. But if we merged, shouldn't I feel differently? Are they inside me and able to talk?_

 _"Unfortunately, due to the circumstances, your counterparts do not have much strength inside your conscious, meaning you cannot split apart. Perhaps, over time they will wake up once more."_

 _Somehow, that doubtful tone doesn't inspire much hope in me…._

 _Right...so, why exactly did I wake up on a beach instead of my bed?_

 _"Because of the merges, your soul and your body are much different than they once were, due to the nature of your world, had you been sent back your life would have become twisted due to the new foreign presences inside you. We could only use another spell which allowed for a copy of the you before the merge to go back and live your life. Due to the nature of the Spell, you can always return to your world using that body, meaning you will effectively and literally live two lives should you choose."_

 _That...sounds tiring. And complicated. I'm not too sure how I feel about another me living my life while I live the life of….another me, I suppose I should say._

 _I suppose I can rely on your help while I'm in this world at least?_

 _She smiled. "Of course. While you are not our master, and it may take some time for the others to wish to duel with you, we are all indebted to you for saving a part of the master, and as the situation you are in also indirectly our fault, you are our responsibility."_

 _So are you all the only ones I can talk to here? Cuz the way the others are staring at me from afar makes me think they're not a good conversation unlike you._

 _"Heehee. No. I apologize in advance about my clan, some of them are simply a bit too traditional, and as such are not quite happy right now as we must ask you to live our master's life. Despite the fact that we cannot fight by your side, I have called forth a great deal of Duel spirits connected to you due to your collection of 'aesthetic' decks from your own world. When you sleep, if you focus hard, you can talk to your other comrades that reside in the cards you feel closest to. Though returning to this realm of your Spirits will cause you to miss out on dreaming or going to your home world for that night."_

 _I-interesting._

 _So, um. Thanks._

 _"You needn't thank me. Unfortunately I do not imagine the other Lightlords will be so willing to accept you as their master. Not without a great deal of convincing." She said quietly with a somber smile._

 _I didn't mind, I mean, their master isn't really me, so..._

 _Well, I can imagine there's a lot still not said, but no point in pressing. That type of information comes out sooner or later._

 _"When you awake, you will find the other spirits will have sent you their cards when you return to consciousness. Your counterpart's closest friends will be able to retrieve the some of the cards for you as they are in a chest in his home, as you are in the hospital. The other half of the cards you will be able to retrieve immediately as it showed up with you in our master's deck casewhen you were found. Quite a few months will have passed since you defeated the abomination."_

 _Thanks for the heads up, anything else you want to mention?_

 _"Hm...well I suppose there are a few things you should watch out for...since they are likely to be quite dangerous..."_

 _I regret asking._

 _Well, not really. I do absolutely feel fear knowing about 'that'._

* * *

I adjusted my sleek red hoodie while pointedly not looking at Serena.

"Why do you even care so much about hiding your cards!?" Serena frowned at me as she always did when I insisted on this. "It's not as if the average duelist owns more than a small percentage of all the cards made. There are plenty of pro duelists with rare decks. And my Moonlights aren't exactly used by everyone. While the amount of cards you have is definitely awe-surprising, you don't have anything that would make people scream at you."

"I think you mean awe-inspiring, or awesomely surprising." Slips out of my mouth before I could stop it.

Still. I guess I never really thought about that. Maybe it was an effect from being in my world that I cared so much about what cards are in a deck and the mentality of how anyone can get any card. I thought that showing cards nearly or just impossible to get for the average duelist should be avoided but...

I mean, Serena's Moonlights were in a card pack by luck, and then she later dueled others for the remaining cards and ultimately completed the deck after winning a tournament and asking for the last ones as a prize. Her fusion monsters were formed from her desire for victory and grace.

Even when the Lightsworn evolved to Lightlords from this body's tourney days hadn't really cause a scandal. Apparently with how 'odd' this world is in terms of cards and duel spirits that it takes something like trying to Fix a duel or cheat by sleight of hand stuff to really cause a scandal. After all, when everything from Fusions to Links exist in some capacity and even without first having bought the physical cards you can get new cards out of nowhere, so I suppose complaints about how rare cards are aren't really listened to.

Still, when thinking about that line of thought, I should be feeling relieved or something right? I mean much as I loved my Heroes, I did enjoy using other decks too.

So why do I still feel so reluctant?

Serena let out a sound of frustration. "Fine! Let's just duel right here and now!"

"What? What if we get there late?"

"This is far more important that schooling a bunch of losers. I'm getting to the bottom of this."

More important how? Well, I guess I shouldn't argue. She hasn't been violent in our friendship so far, but I won't test that. Especially since she was angry enough to call everyone else losers.

I looked over to my trunk/chest full of cards where Serena was at. She grabbed one of the decks and placed it in my hand and ripped me away from my room into the backyard.

"I'm coming. I'm coming. Alright then-"

""Duel!""

 **Serena - 4000 Me - 4000**

I looked over to my deck and saw that Serena grabbed my Prophecy Invoked deck. All things considered, the only reason I didn't bring it with me was because I still wasn't sure how use it, not to mention it was basically shoddily made. It was a deck I made because I thought the cards were fun together.

As for my hand, well I wasn't too sure how it was, just that it was probably "not good". Most of the hand was full of the high level monsters and the two invoked spells. Problem was, none of these cards could be used without Aleistor. I had Spellbook inside the Pot, but I would prefer not to use that card since it'll give Serena more ammunition.

I realized that neither of us mentioned who would go first just yet, Serena seemed to be analyzing her cards before she turned her gaze to me. Seeing that I wasn't saying anything, she narrowed her eyes and said, "Fine then, guess I'm going first."

I was relieved I didn't have to go first and immediately risk losing due to this hand.

"First I'll summon Moonlight Blue Cat in attack mode and place three cards face down and end my turn." Serena's monster graced the stage with a double front flip and landed next to her.

I breathe deeply in anxiety. This next draw could really make or break me.

It was...

Pot of Greed. Guess the Heart of the Cards came in, or maybe I just got lucky. Either way, let's see what I can do with this first.

"I activate Pot of Greed and draw two Cards." I pulled out the cards and saw a monster I could summon alongside a spell card to help me pull of a small combo.

"I summon the Strength of Prophecy!" The red garbed spellcaster stood straight at my call. "Now I activate Spellbook of Secrets which lets me add a Spellbook Spell card to my hand and activate the added Spellbook of Power. This card lets me increase a monsters attack by 1000 until the end of this turn, but now I activate Strength's effect by shuffling Spellbook of Power back into my deck to gain an extra 500 attack permanently!"

With 3000 attack points I made my attack. Strength of Prophecy blasted Moonlight Blue Cat into next week with a fire bomb.

 **Serena - 2600 Me - 4000**

"I activate my trap card Moonlight Reincarnation Dance. This lets me bring two Moonlight monsters to my hand. And Blue Cat special summons one Moonlight Monster because she was destroyed, so I'll grace the stage with Purple Butterfly in defense mode."

I frown. That...didn't seem good. "Spellbook of Power's effect activates, when the monster who I targeted destroys a monster, I can add a Spellbook card to my hand."

Rather than give Serena even more cards, I'll add cards to my own hand alone.

"I activate Spellbook of Knowledge, this lets me discard one Spellbook card to draw two cards. So I'll discard Spellbook inside the Pot. Turn end."

I was pretty nervous about what she would do, with her trap card she was able to add two moonlights, if she didn't have a fusion before she would now no doubt.

"I send Black Sheep to the graveyard and add a Fusion to my hand, now I'll summon White Rabbit and bring back Black Sheep!"

I hate that I saw this coming.

" _Now I activate Fusion using Black Sheep and White Rabbit! Swirl in the vortex of the Moon's gravity! Beautiful beast that dances in the moonlight! Fusion Summon! Moonlight Cat Dancer_!"

The beautiful level 7 Fusion arrived gallantly and fiercely.

"Now Black Sheep's effect brings back White Rabbit to my hand. Now with Moonlight Perfume I'll summon back Black Sheep."

What? Why would she waste it now? No, if she has a fusion, then black sheep would...no, it wouldn't summon back Cat Dancer, maybe she'll summon it with White Rabbit to get two Cat Dancers?

I wanted to ask, but I figured I'd see why sooner or later.

"Now I activate Crush Card Virus and tribute Black Sheep, so now all your monsters with more than 1500 attack are destroyed."

I flinched as more than half my hand shattered and was sent to the graveyard alongside Strength of Prophecy. Definitely didn't see that one coming.

Odd, as far as I knew, Serena wasn't the type to put something like CCV in her deck, I wonder what changed that?

"I'll let Purple Butterfly fly away and give Cat Dancer an extra 1000 attack points. Now I'll attack directly with Cat Dancer! And your Life points take an extra 100 effect damage!"

I fell to a knee from the hit, and watched Cat Dancer backflip towards Serena.

 **Serena - 2600 Me - 500**

Damn. This 4000 LP limit is terrible, it's almost a wonder how anyone gets any comebacks. If I could tank a turn or two I might have grabbed some cards to turn this around, but with Crush Card Virus in play my options are even more limited. Talk about cornering someone.

Definitely going to be my loss.

I didn't have many options other than to play what I currently have. How does Crush Card Virus work other than destroying monster cards over three turns? I don't think it affects the field, but CCV has always confused me on how it works.

I probably shouldn't be thinking for too long. Serena looks like it'll make her mad if I think too long.

"Draw!" Serena's CCV came into play and revealed the card to her. Magical Meltdown. Guess I was safe, and honestly this was good for me. In more ways than one.

"I play the Field Spell Magical Meltdown!" A large red mystical circle encased us. "This lets me bring an Aleister the Invoker to my hand, and I'll bring him right out!" The Hooded Spellcaster rose out from the circle, brandished his staff and held his Spellbook closely to his body.

"His effect allows me to bring an Invocation from my deck, which I will now play and banish Aleister from my field and High Priestess of Prophecy from my graveyard! _Mystical Occultist of Summoning, Spellcaster of Hidden Wisdom, Bring forth your power and summon the Metallic Knight of the Heavens! Fusion Summon! Invoked Beast Merkabah!"_

A large chariot machine rode out from the red circle. The knight on top raised his weapon as his chariot littered our surroundings with its noise.

"Now I use Invocations secondary effect, by shuffling it back into my deck I can bring Aleister to my hand. Now enough wasting time, Mechaba attack with your divine chariot!" The knight rode forward to trample Cat Dancer.

"Cat Dancer's effect activates!" Serena shouted. "She can't be destroyed by battle!"

I grin. "Invoked Beast Merkabah's effect activates, by discarding a card of the same type, I can negate and banish your card whose effect you tried to activate!" I discard Aleister, knowing that Invocation would let me use him again later on.

 **Serena - 2500 Me - 500**

"I'll throw down some face downs and end my turn." I said, feeling slightly better about myself, but not by much.

Serena drew her card and her eyes flashed to her hand. Immediately she came up with a plan. "I banish Moonlight Perfume from my graveyard and bring Black Sheep to my hand. I'm sure you know what I'll do with her don't you." I did, and was proven right as she added a fusion. "I'll play Kaleido Chick and use her Effect to send one Cat Dancer from my extra deck to the graveyard and now she can be treated as Cat Dancer. Now with Fusion I'll fuse Kaleido Chick with Crimson Fox in my hand! _Swarm in a vortex of the moon's gravity and revive with a new power! Fusion Summon! Come forth! Elegant and Slender beast dancing in the moonlit wilderness! Moonlight Panther Dancer!"_

I could only wince despite the mesmerizing sight of graceful dancing. I guess I should be glad she didn't or couldn't pull out Leo Dancer. Kaleido Chick was dangerous as always.

"Now the effect of Moonlight Crimson Fox activates, because she was sent to the graveyard your Merkabah's attack becomes 0! I also activate Panther Dancer's effect to let her attack twice, and on the first battle your monster is not destroyed. Panther Dancer! Destroy Invoked Beast Merkabah!"

I began to panic. Why didn't I stop her stupid fusion? I already knew that against someone like Serena, slowly escalating my own tactics(as per my preference to slowly build up to a climax end) aren't enough, I need to also stall her own, even if just slightly. I frustratedly activate a spell card as I cuss at myself for my preference only using Mechaba's effect at dire moments. "I activate The Book of Law and tribute Mechaba for a new monster. _I summon forth the Warrior of Lightning and Wind! Fusion Tribute! Invoked Beast Raidjin!_ "

In a storm of wind and electricity, my armored warrior surged forward.

"I activate his effect and flip your Panther Dancer face down!"

"I banish Crimson Fox and negate your effect, giving us both 1000 life points. Now the attack goes through!"

 **Serena - 3500 Me - 900**

"Now I attack again due to Panther Dancer's ability!"

"I activate Defense Draw! All damage is turned to 0 and I draw one card!"

Serena Tch'd. "You might have saved your life points, but your monster is still destroyed."

I puffed out my right cheek and sucked in my left. This wasn't good at all.

I couldn't say anything in my defense, so I just decided I would see if there was anything I could do. But I wasn't too sure of my chances. Panther Dancer couldn't be destroyed with card effects meaning I needed a card to banish her. And this deck had no means of direct attacks through ignoring monsters. If I stay defensive, she'll definitely summon Leo Dancer without hesitation this time. Talk about a killer situation.

I guess my only play is to hope I can whittle her lifepoints down by attacking.

"My draw..." I wince as World of Prophecy was destroyed. It's mostly useless in my hand, but it still sucked to see it go.

"I banish three Spellbook Spell cards in my graveyard to special summon the Devil of Prophecy! Now I play Invocation! I banish Crowley the Invoker and Fool of Prophecy in my graveyard." A young man with blonde hair holding the same staff as Aleister appeared. His blue robe bellowed in the wind. He was accompanied by another young man with purple hair wearing a yellow robe.

" _Arcane Magician of Summoning, Fool of Unlimited Potential, pool together your knowledge and summon the Wandering Mountain of Myth! Fusion summon! Invoked Beast Magellanica!"_

A large rock golem like monster rose forth. It was currently the size of the house, but I knew from my spirit world adventures that it was easily the actual size of a mountain.

I regained Crowley to my hand with invocation and watched Magellanica increase its attack to 3500 due to Crowley's effect.

"Now attack Moonlight Panther Dancer with Continental Devastation!"

He raised his giant rocky fist and shot it toward the feline and shattered the feline.

 **Serena - 2800 Me - 900**

"Now Devil! Attack with Magical Consumption!"

But I noticed she looked too calm and felt my heart drop. She used a Defense Draw of her own and stopped my attack from dealing damage. I cursed as that was my best chance at dropping her life points.

"Don't think getting rid of Panther Dancer changes anything! I'm still winning this duel!"

Well things definitely weren't looking too great. I definitely was done for if she brought out any of her Dancers. I don't doubt her winning, what I doubt is my ability to come back.

She drew a card and played it to the field in defense mode. "I summon White Rabbit, with her effect I'll bring back Cat Dancer in defense mode. I'll place two cards face down and activate White Rabbit's other effect, up to the same amount of Moonlight monsters on my field, I can return spells and traps on your field."

Luckily I'm fast enough for this! "I activate Hope for Escape! For every 1000 difference in our life points I draw one card!" Slightly lamenting that the damage I gave her beforehand stopped me from drawing an extra card, I breathed hard as I hoped this would put her in a corner.

I had Megallanica and Devil on the field, but I wasn't too happy with my chances, I hoped those face downs weren't anything bad. But I'm not one to place my all my cards in a sketchy bucket.

I'm almost positive I won't like that face down. To be honest, given the situation I doubt that I'll-

"Hey! What are you waiting for!"

For now, I'll risk it. If it's a bluff, I won't be in any better position.

"Megallanica! Attack Blue Cat!"

"Not so fast! I activate Mirror Force!"

"Shit!" A curse slipped out as my mountain sized monster shattered into dust, with Devil following.

It was a good thing I didn't summon another monster after all. But damn if I didn't call it right. And damn if I wished I were actually wrong and was just paranoid.

"My turns not over just yet! I discard Crowley the Invoker to activate a spell card from my deck! That spell card is Invoked Formation! I normal summon Aleister from my GY and place Invoked Purgatorio in defense mode with its effects negated." I add Invocation as I watch Aleister rise up with the weird looking trio of monsters in Purgatorio looking rather transparent. "Now I activate Invocation and banish Aleister and Crowley the Invokers! _Mystical Occultist of Summoning. Arcane Magician of Summoning, Overload your magical power and become a great beast! Fusion Summon! Invoked Beast Caliga!"_ I summoned Aleistor's monster form in defense mode and added back Aleister. "Now I banish Invoked Formation and fuse Caliga and Purgatorio! _Spell caster corrupted by magic, Demonic beasts of Hell, fuse together into a being of paradise! Fusion Summon! Invoked Beast Elysium_!"

I summoned a...well to be honest I wasn't too sure what Invoked Elysium was other than that it was bigger than Megallanica. With 4000 defense points, as long as she didn't have any card to destroy it I should be fine.

"I also use his effect, by banishing Caliga in my graveyard all dark monsters on your side of the field are banished as well!" Darkness encased her defense line and banished them.

"Watashi no Turn!" Serena drew a card and I was beginning to have a bad feeling like I always do.

"I activate Moonlight Fusion! Because you have a monster summoned from the Extra deck, I can use a monster from my extra deck as material, I send Panther Dancer to the graveyard with White Rabbit and Blue Cat on the field to bring forth my most beautiful monster! _Swarm in a vortex of the moon's gravity and revive with a new power! Fusion Summon! Come forth! The king of beasts dancing atop the summit of the moonlight wilderness! Moonlight Leo Dancer!"_

This might be the end for me!

"I activate Elysium's effect! Because he is also treated as having multiple attributes, I can banish him to get rid of Leo Dancer!"

Darkness shrouded both our monsters and made them disappear.

However, it was clear to me- that was not enough.

After all-

"I summon Moonlight Emerald Bird!"

-she still had a normal summon.

Without a second's notice, the graceful descent of the bird into the battlefield made me sigh wistfully.

There was no doubt now...

"Emerald Bird! Attack!"

I didn't say anything.

I could only raise my duel disk.

This was my inevitable...

"Gah!"

Defeat.

 **Serena wins! Fuck!**

I fall back on my ass and growled quietly. I run my hand through my hair rather hard.

She completely destroyed me.

It annoyed me. In fact it annoyed me even more than losing to the King of Games.

Maybe I need to invest some more time for the Invoked Prophecy deck. That was actually pretty fun, but the high level Spellbook of Prophecy monsters were a bit of a Killer given their more selfish effects. Or maybe the deck itself is fine, I just need 8000 life points or an opponent not as good as Serena. I think there's still some Invoker and Prophecy cards that could have turned it-

"Are you trying to make excuses to yourself again?"

A voice cut in on my thoughts which was pretty unappreciated.

"What?" That being said, I was intrigued on how she knew what I was thinking.

"I noticed this throughout our duel, and the other day when you were dueling in the park b-"

Wait, she was there at the park? Did Rei invite her? She wasn't there when we lef- Oh wait she's still talking.

"-you seem to always think you're going to lose. Every time your opponent does something you always get his fearful look in your eyes, and whenever you pull something off your incredibly relieved that it wasn't interrupted. You don't even respond to your opponent's attempts of conversation and close up, which is completely different from how you are out of a duel, when you can't help but keep talking once you start. When you win, you're too busy being relieved that you won you aren't even thinking of your victory. When you lose, you just ignore the pain from losing and shrug it off. As if there was nothing you could do. As if you don't care about it. "

Wow. She really did get to bottom of all that. Guess dueling and how it connects people is true. Though it's real one sided understanding in this case. Even I'm not sure if she's telling the truth or just what she perceives as the truth.

I've always been of the thought that; nobody knows you better than yourself, but that doesn't mean a person can't try to ignore what they don't like about themselves. I'm positive my loss is just because she's too good, but maybe simply thinking that has a negative effect as well.

"I get it now." She closed her eyes and sighed before sitting down in front of me.

"The reason you don't want to use those cards...is because you think that if you lose with them, you won't be able to make excuses to yourself."

Ouch. She could at least not say it put loud.

But maybe that would defeat the purpose.

She is right on a certain level. I hate losing, and I'll always look for the reasons why I lost. Whether it's true, or just something I decided to see as a reason.

"Look, I get it, I really do. But you can't hold yourself back because you're constantly sure you're going to lose. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you can't enjoy the duel, you're more likely to lose. I saw you enjoying yourself each time you summoned a new monster you couldn't with your other decks, it's been clear to me with how often you edit those decks that you really want use them-"

I can't help but snort. Maybe that's why she grabbed this deck.

I won't say I'll stop being who I am, but at the very least, "Alright I got it quit the lecture. We're going to be late you know."

Serena yanked me up and pushed me towards my room.

No holding back is it.

I don't know if this little lesson stuck with me, but I won't deny that I'd have more fun with variety.

Well, let's see how I stand against other duelists again, without any worries.

Now which decks should I bring?

* * *

Unfortunately despite my newfound excitement and will to crush everyone at the tournament, I hadn't had what I felt was a good opportunity to bring out more cards. I ended up simply sticking to Heroes and Spellbook Invokers, the former because I was used to it, the latter because I simply had it with me. I still had another deck that I wanted to use, but honestly I wanted to win more than I wanted to have fun, besides, I really liked using those two decks, so it wasn't that hard of a decision to put off using the third deck.

Of course, added to the fact that I was partnered up with Serena, the two of us never went over three draw phrases each. Her beat down style of overwhelming damage was ruthless, adding onto me using combos to ensure their fields were monsterless(with Elysium or Absolute Zero's effect) or weak(Great Tornado's effect) and her Moonlights went to town on them. Unfortunately, most of the duelists couldn't get past that combo, but a fair few did lock away our monster effects to try and keep that combo from appearing.

Unfortunately for them, my Heroes and her Moonlights had not only raw power but finesse. I may not have that scouter part of my duel disk that let me know what my opponents cards were immediately but luckily Serena hard carried me there when it came to card effects I didn't recognize(Serena was the one who didn't let me bring it in the first place so it was the least she could do.)

Before we knew it, the tournament was over with us as winners. Apparently Serena was disappointed that the ones who gave her trouble hadn't showed up this time. I suppose those ones were the type that didn't have many friends. Like her.

But then the most high school thing cliche that ever happens, happened. And I was both really excited, and annoyed.

"Heh. Hey guys look at these chumps, all happy that they can duel with such mediocre skill."

A bunch of easy to forget faces who dressed clearly rich with expensive Duel disks walked up to us all. I assume the super whiny voice I heard came from the bluish haired dude in glasses.

One who was clearly the leader by how much confidence was being exerted took another step forward. He looked at me and Serena and looked at me dismissively.

"You must think you're so tough don't you? I hope you know those elementary school tactics would have never worked without your beautiful partner here?" He winked at Serena and just his little suave act made me want to throw up.

I gave him a dry stare while Serena glared at him. Honestly, insulting tactics specifically meant to help my tag partner deal damage (that would have obviously been changed up if it were a singles' duel tournament) was pathetic.

I got out my phone and started ignoring them. It was still pretty early. About lunch time. Rei should be free, so maybe we should meet up since the tourney ended faster than usual. That girl is probably at my house again, using my computer and what not. I texted her to let -

"-where do you think you're getting off insulting all these duelists!? Including my friend, who can wipe you all out in one go you rich boy snobs!"

\- Her know what was up on our side.

Maybe it was because she was a teenage girl, but her response came in pretty quickly. She was going to run over(literally, and she was pretty fast even by my standards) and we could all go somewhere to somewhat celebrate(because this wasn't that big of an accomplishment). Too bad you had to be 18 to drive in Japan. I don't think even Kaiba or Mokuba could help me there.

"N-no! You're misunderstanding us Serena-chan!"

"I didn't give you permission to call me by my given name." I heard a small growl from my head and looked up to see her angry face. My eyes showed my amusement but I turned them back to my phone while trying to hold my mouth in a neutral form.

I told Rei to look both ways and not to hurry seeing we're probably going-

"B-but I don't know your last name!"

"And you never will!" My angry friend said fiercely (wow this really wasn't her day).

\- to end up dueling even more. Although I wonder how this guy knew her name when I don't think anyone ever said it today.

"Hey! Pay attention to what's going on in front of you!" somebody across from me shouted.

Completely resisting my urge to start a fist fight, I walked over to the other duelists from the tournament while Serena started a duel with a few of those guys at the same time.

"Dude! You're not gonna help your friend?" One of the tourney duelists asked, a tall boy with brown hair that stood out horizontally forward.

"Dude," I said back mimicking him, "if she wanted my help, she would have caught my attention while I was on the phone. She's a lot better at analyzing a duelist's strengths by glance alone than I am, so if all she's been doing is getting mad they probably aren't worth much." My words were immediately proven as she threw out Panther Dancer and attacked. "See?"

They all looked amazed, and the girls that were there gained hearts for eyes that told me who their newest role model was.

"Anyways, anyone know what's up with these guys? What's with the stick up their asses, and why do they get off on barging in when the tourney's over."

I saw them flush at my language, though some of the girls instead wrinkled their noses. Japan really doesn't have much cussing among teenagers. Or at least, this Japan didn't.

A girl answered the questions. "I recognize these guys from prep school. They used to hang around Manjoume Jun until the big guy that's staring at Saotome-sama gained a new attitude and broke away with a lot of Manjoume-kun's fans. Everyone who's entering Duel Academia knew about this tournament, but some of the duelists that went to prep school felt too high and mighty to join."

So typical jerk behavior then. These are the type of guys that become neck beards and wheaboos. At least in attitude anyways.

"I wish physical violence wasn't so against the law-" much more so than my world, "-I'd love to give these assholes a punch in the face." Ignoring the flush on their faces, I noted that they all agreed.

Seeing Serena wipe them out would be hilarious, but really not interesting, so why don't I mix things up.

"Y'know, why don't some of you join in and make this a battle royale? They still have a few in reserve, so you can help Serena and take em out at the same time, and before you ask 'Should we really enter?' to me, consider it more practice for the entrance exam." I saw a few of them close their mouths as I cut off their question.

"C'mon. I already hit my duel quota for the day, and while I wouldn't say you need practice, wouldn't you like to take them down a few pegs? Nothing like being the dark horse and winning." They put their hands on their deck cases and I knew they were one reason away from going. "C'mon, its not everyday you can enter a battle royale like this. And definitely not everyday you can Duel alongside Serena. You're guaranteed to become more inspired when dueling with her personally." Admittedly I was bullshitting that last reason but hey, she beat me and now I'm going to use decks I'm more familiar with that aren't Heroes, so maybe I had a point still.

I was also serious about the duel quota. My arm was tired from holding up my duel disk for so long, otherwise I'd be happy to raise my W/L record with some easy wins.

Given how they ran over to duel, it looks like I still succeeded in convincing them, somewhat lies notwithstanding.

Nice.

I pulled out my phone and started recording. This will be one of those things we look back on and laugh and be amazed. Or at least I would.

I wonder if my brother can come to this world too? He's the only one I could think of that would laugh with me with these things.

I swung my phone around with a smile as I caught some more duelists run in, inspired by the ones I convinced.

I can't even bring myself to be surprised at the amount of people joining in on both sides. This world does encourage both individuality and evolution.

"YOU!" My camera swung to catch the disgustingly mad face of the leader, who still hadn't joined in. "This all because of you isn't it!"

I didn't deem answering him. I was recording after all. Didn't want to say anything bad in case(more like when) I put it up on the internet.

Well, if I was gonna talk, best to make sure it's not too aggravating.

"You and your friends were the one who came up to us talking down our skills. Just because they want to prove you wrong doesn't mean you should just blame someone else that your obviously asking for a fight words worked."

"I'm the San-" his words blurred out from all the noise, "-e then. Duel me you nobody scum!"

I put my phone in my chest pocket, still recording.

"Since you're so eager to win, feel free to take the first move." I said putting my deck in. Maybe this was the perfect time to try something new. After all, like I said earlier, single duels require different strategies.

"Your loss you townperson B! I activate Magic Removal Virus Cannon! Now you have to choose ten spell cards and cast them to the Graveyard!" He seemed especially smug at that strategy, which made somewhat sense, despite not being a strategy, that card was super cheap as fuck. Honestly, he said he kept an eye out during the tournament and he still thought that would hurt me? How even more unfortunate for him that this deck runs more than enough spells with more than one copy for me to pick and choose from. I almost wish I used my Superheavy Samurai deck just to see the look on his face when I don't discard any spells. But it's a good thing I didn't use the prophecy invokers deck I suppose, since it's options of getting its spells cards from the grave are rather limited and hard to draw.

"You starting to sweat already loser?" The tanned asshole said as I said nothing and sent my spell cards away.

"Heh. Nice move -" I ignored the glasses asshole dueling his own opponent that also paid attention to the ass he liked to kiss to focus on what cards I should throw, mostly because I just didn't want to hear them talk. I didn't need to focus that hard. I would have called him Four-eyes asshole, but not only would that be a cliché insult, I also prefer to wear glasses to avoid contacts so I didn't want to be somewhat hypocritical.

Side note, I've been wearing contacts just to avoid adjusting it constantly because I feel like I cause the 'anime glasses causes a bright shine/glint' trope too much.

"Now I'll play Raioh and place one card face down. With this you won't be special summoning any monsters." This guy...

Is he for real? For his sake that face down card better be a good one or this one'll be in the bag. Not that I mind.

Honestly, he doesn't even know Raioh doesn't stop fusion summoning and he comes with such a high head?

Wait, does Raioh stop fusions? I don't think it does but...

Well, best to play it safe in the end. Good thing I switched decks.

"With the Scale 1 Metalphosis Silverbird and the Scale 8 Metalphosis Steeleren, I Set the Scales in my favor!"

A man with blue hair on a motorcycle and a girl with pink hair on a bird looking flying vehicle appeared in bright pillars of light.

The sight of these monsters I've never used in these duels astounded him. The sheer shock on his face made me chuckle rather sadistically. He is so fucked.

"P-pendulum monsters!? How'd someone like you get his hands on some of these cards!"

I brushed my hair out of my face and pondered the question.

Before immediately realizing I didn't care about answering his questions.

"Sometimes the cards just choose the duelist. But enough about that, I have no intention on humoring you or anyone else here. With my current scale, I can summon all monsters between 2 and 7. From my hand onto the field, drift into the battlefield at light speed!"

I place the first monster in.

"Level 4 Goldriver-"

"I activate Raioh's effect!"

"-and Level 7 Volflame!" I finished as if I wasn't interrupted.

Goldriver was crushed by lightning upon being summoned, leaving Volfame free to drift in.

His eyes widened as if everything he knew was a lie.

"Bit too hasty now aren't you." I say before continuing my turn so he doesn't say anything that will make me want to just leave. "Now I'll use the effects of the spell cards that are in my Graveyard because of your Virus Cannon. By shuffling my three Metalphosis Fusions back to the deck I can draw three cards."

The large combat machine was revved up by the man inside as he could see what was coming.

"First I'll place down the field Spell Metalphosis Formation." I watched transparent blue vehicles drift around. I suppose the field Spell doesn't have much of a look to it. "Now I activate Silverbird's effect and destroy Steeleren in order to set Metalphosis Fusion on the field."

I could finish him off now...but to be honest, I'm actually rather curious of what he can do. I place one card absentmindedly as I pondered my next action.

Hmmm. Should I? Shouldn't I?

"Hey! Make your move slacker!"

I couldn't resist the tick mark. Fine then.

" _I activate Metalphosis Fusion and fuse Volflame with the two cards in my hand! Veteran warrior, don your red hot machine and fight until the end of the world! Fusion Summon! Burn up the Battlefield, Metalphosis Cardinal!"_

The tank on the field began to shift as it seemed to enlarge. Flames began to spew as it stood on two legs and the man glared down at my opponent.

"Metalphosis Cardinal! Crush him with your blazing fists!"

"I activate my trap card Sakuretsu armor! Say goodbye to your monster!" A burning piece of armor appeared in the way of my monster's fist and was promptly crushed and sent flying to its owner.

"Ah! What the hell!"

I laugh. "Sorry Mr. Elite, but Metalphosis Formation keeps my Normal monsters from being affected by your card effects. Now your one hit away from losing."

He gritted his teeth. "This isn't over!"

Without me even saying I ended my turn, he drew his card.

"I summon Mahunder in defense mode, and her effect lets me normal summon one level 4 thunder monster, Pahunder!"

Two adults with bright yellow hair and lightning covered fists appeared covering their chests. Oh shit was he about to Xyz summon? It would put some bite to his bark.

"Pahunder also lets me summon another monster, so I'll bring out Origin Thunder Dragon and place a card face down and end my turn."

I looked over to his face down card. And then his empty hand.

"I'll throw some cards face down and activate Card of Sanctity, turn end."

I watched him go red in the face. "You think I need your charity!" He looked angrier than ever.

"Of course. Can't you see whose winning." I taunted him.

Wow this was actually pretty fun.

I couldn't wait to crush that ego of his.

"Grr. I activate mystical space typhoon and get rid of that field spell of yours!" The lights faded away in a rush of wind. "Now I'll play raigeki and get rid of your monster!"

I almost wanted to sigh or smile. Just as I thought. "I activate Metalphosis Counter, when one of my cards is destroyed I summon a Metalphosis monster from my deck. Raremetalphosis Bismugear, time to drift into battle." The green machine rider drifted sideways into defense mode.

"Those zero defense points won't help you at all! I discard Thunder Sea Horse and add two monsters to my hand from my deck. And because I used a Thunder monster's hand effect, I can tribute one monster to summon a certain fusion monster."

"Goodbye Origin Thunder Dragon! I now summon Thunder Dragon Colussus! Come destroy my enemy in a storm of destruction!" He must really like words with 'D' in em.

I watched rather apathetically as he summoned two sibling monsters of the Hunder archetype and started to attack with a confident face as he had a field full of monster's. Had he taken out my set cards, he may have won.

I wished I had a Mirror Force now. I bet the look of despair would look great on him.

It's no Mirror Force, but I placed more cards down for a reason.

Still, admittedly that dragon worried me, the way it growled seemed unnatural and kicked my flight instincts into gear.

Right as Bismugear was destroyed I activated another Metalphosis Counter and summoned Steeleren(while gaining another card due to Bismugear. He was forced to attack with his Colossus, then attacked with his remaining monsters, only to be stopped by my multiple Defense Draws.

I didn't even bother to hold my smugness back.

"Rai! Stop messing around and finish him!" I was brought out of my gloating by a shout at the side.

Ignoring the entertained or awed faces, Serena looked rather annoyed that I was playing around. Apparently the other duels finished by now. There weren't many still dueling.

"Fine fine. Ruin my fun." I sighed.

"You think you can still win this!" He shouted.

I admit it may seem unlikely on the surface with that dragon, but he didn't even have any more face downs to stop me, just a line of monsters who honestly weren't that strong. Plus I had a full hand.

"I'll reset the scales with my Scale 1 Bismugear." The level one rider flashed in. "Now return from my extra deck, Metalphosis Heroes! Steeleren, Volflame."

"Those monsters are too weak to help you here!" I would definitely not call out my monsters were weak when this guy brought out monsters definitely more useful for an Xyz summon and never did. Either he was looking down on me, or he didn't actually have any and was just a fusion user.

I ignored his friend on the side who didn't understand the situation and jumped the gun because I summoned my monsters in defense mode, it was a different reaction from my opponent who began to pale for some reason.

"I activate the spell card Lightmetalphosis Mercureeze. Now it becomes a level 4 normal monster with 1000 attack and defense, then from my hand, because I have more than one Metalphosis monster, I use the trap card LightMetalphosis Titun, which can be summoned as a Level 5 effect monster with 2300 attack."

A teenager on a grey hover skateboard and a silver armored warrior showed up from behind me.

"I activate Violet Flash, now for every fusion Summon this turn I can draw one card. Now I'll activate two Metalphosis Fusions, fusing together my monsters. _Burn the Metalphosis into your bodies, let Hero and Machine become one! Double Fusion Summon! Burn up the Battlefield! LightMetalphosis Vibrun! Metalphosis Adamante!"_ A sleek black armored man with fire igniting on his back appeared with a blue haired armored man.

The 2400 and 2500 monsters burnt the ground as they awaited my call.

Unlike him, I wasn't going to let those face down cards stay there.

"I activate Giant Trunade!"

That pale face became even paler as his (supposedly) traps were cleared and as I used another Formation field spell, but than it cleared up as he noticed neither of my monsters were strong enough to beat his dragon.

I used Vibrun to attack the attack position Hunders. "Vibration Crash!" Starting with mama Hunder over there.

"You think destroying those monsters will do anything!? Colossus can banish monsters from the graveyard to stay on the field, you're only making things worse for yourself!"

Cute, but futile. "I already know that, wanna know something about my own monster? Vibrun can't be destroyed by battle, and after the damage step concludes he can attack again, as long as it isn't a direct attack. Now go Vibrun, take em all out!"

The loser fell back as his life points hit 0. I may not have taken out the dragon in a spectacular way, or at all for that matter, but really I didn't feel the need to. Just wanted to win.

"H-how? How did I lose to some nobody background character...?"

Glasses boy and the rest of the forgettable faces rushed to his side. Serena in contrast to them walked over to me and punched my shoulder.

"I know I said to lighten up in a duel, but did you really have to take that so lightly?"

I shrugged. "I was feeling sadistic. Besides, I was trying to even the playing field."

"Y-you punk. You think you're so big just cuz you won once against him!"

"You should have ended it earlier."

"W-wait! I'm not done with you yet you nobody! How'd you get those lightmetalphosis cards?!"

I nodded. "I could've yeah. Anyways, since we're champs now, you want to call Rei and grab some food?"

"Wh-? Hey! Are you ignoring us!"

Serena thought it over before nodding. "Well the dueling mood was ruined by those guys, so I guess we'll just go."

We left the park, not at all aware that we made some fans and enemies.

Well, more like not at all caring.

As if I had anything to worry about from a bunch of spoiled brats going around bullying others.

Hopefully that wasn't a jinx.

* * *

And in this chapter we have the SI's first loss, as well as his first rejection of what he thinks.

This chapter was made pretty quickly, and Serena vs Rai was one of the duels I used an actual real life duel for with exceptions. I wanted this to be done early as, as far as I know, there are a lot of GX fics where the SI-OC hide their cards or hold back in an attempt to save themselves from attention.

While this remains somewhat the case, as the SI doesn't want to get Kaiba's attention using a Blue Eyes, he is no longer reluctant to use certain cards such as Pendulums, which are rare in this world but still exist.

To use an example I thought up but never had a place to put in the story, Super Polymerization is a card that doesn't really exist in this world, and as such is a card SI doesn't want to use, but after this duel, he will be less reluctant and more likely to use the card in fusion decks like Invokers and Metalphosis, despite knowing the card's lore as something super important.

Okay so I know that the bully over in the duel tournament, was super cliché, the thing is, it's meant to be, there's a line in there, about how the yugioh world encourages self evolution, that means that some of the assholes in yugioh most definitely still exist. In this chapter specifically, They're the personification of people who try to step over others for themselves. They don't have names because they don't matter to the SI, just like how they view him. (Also, if you pay attention to the Bully's dialogue and deck, you'll see a hint of what I plan to use him for in the next chapter. He isn't a repeat character, but he's an exaggerated version of what the SI could be if he gets too caught up in his great cards)

The difference between Rai and the bully group however, is that while the bully looks down on others and is positive of his victory, the SI looks down on them, but still takes them seriously and duels all out from the beginning, stopping only to bully and humiliate them during the duel when it's clear he's winning, and still confident that he could turn things around if he starts getting pushed back.

* * *

OC Cards / Card Modifications

Lunar Eclipse – real life effect but now Quick Play(unused due to editing the duel)

Lunalight Perfume – Moonlight Perfume – Real Life Effect (No space between Moonlight so it is now searchable)

Crowley the Invoker – Lvl 4 – Dark – Spellcaster – (1800/1000)- This card's name is also treated as "Aleister the Invoker" while it is banished, or in your field, or GY. Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can discard this card; activate 1 "Invoked Formation" from your Deck or GY. A monster that was Fusion Summoned using this card as Material gains this effect: If this card is Fusion Summoned: It gains 500 ATK and 300 DEF. (From Batmed)

Invoked Formation – Normal Spell - When this card is activated: Immediately after this effect resolves, Normal Summon 1 "Aleister the Invoker" from your hand or GY, and if you do, you can place 1 "Invoked" monster from your Extra Deck or GY in defense mode with its effects negated. You can banish this card from your GY to fusion summon monsters you control only if those monsters are from the extra deck. You can only use each effect of "Invoked Formation" once per turn. (Batmed with modifications from me)

Hope for Escape – Draw one card for every 1000 point difference between you and your opponent. You can pay 1000 life points before drawing cards. (Original card but slightly edited so tributing LP is optional)

Metalphosis fusion – IRL effect but now it can be activated multiple times as long as it was not sent to the GY the turn of activating the effect.

Lightmetalphosis Mercureeze – Spell – When you activate this card, it is summoned as a level 4 normal monster (Warrior/ Fire/ 1000 attack/ 1000 defense). During either player's turn, when this card is in the graveyard, you can shuffle two Metalphosis monsters faceup in your extra deck or graveyard into the main deck in order to activate it's effect. This effect cannot be activated the same turn it was sent to the graveyard.

Lightmetalphosis Titun – When this card is activated, it is summoned as a Level 5 effect monster (Warrior/ Fire/ 2300 attack/ 0 defense). It's effect is, you can activate one trap card from your hand when this card is destroyed. If you have two or more Metalphosis monsters this card can be activated from the hand, but is summoned in defense mode.

Lightmetalphosis Vibrun – Warrior/ Fire/ 2400 attack / 2800 defense – One Lightmetalphosis monster from the field and one metalphosis monster – This card cannot be destroyed by battle. When this card is attacked, it gains 300 attack and defense until the end of the turn. If this card attacks, after the damage step concludes, it can attack again. This card can only attack directly once per turn.

Make sure to review since not many GX fics stand out. It helps motivate me.


	3. Chapter 3

LtD3

REMEMBER, DETAILS LIKE LIFE POINTS AND ATTACK POINTS ARE WRITTEN DEPENDING ON HOW THE MC VIEWS THE DUEL IN IMPORTANCE/IF HE CAN HEAR IT

* * *

 _I won't deny that seeing so many duel spirits was disorienting. It was quiet, seeing as they all just stared at me._

 _I wanted to talk to them, to see how they felt about dueling, or me using them for duels rather._

 _It actually placed some pressure on me. I wanted to use all of them for duels. The problem was that I, well, just wasn't good at some of them. Demise/Ruin, Gustos, World Chalice, I enjoyed their aesthetic, but I only ever lost with them._

 _Looking at them, you can't help but want to talk to all of them._

 _But I had to focus, I didn't have long until the entrance exam practical._

 _I walked over to the two largest groups who were in the center. All of whom I recognized, except for the ones who were in the back._

 _I didn't really know how to interact with them, so I could tell this would be awkward. Good thing nobody had to know how it would go._

* * *

Seeing so many teenagers in one spot was disorienting. It was loud, with the sounds from the duels ringing the loudest.

Having looked around, I spotted Manjoume alone(his trench coat thing was very noticeable), standing and watching, as well as who I assume is the Tenjoin siblings and Ryo together standing over some railings.

I saw a few students that look a little familiar from the past week dueling as well, probably including the guys who tried to start trouble. Heh, bet most of them weren't even prepared for today.

Granted, I wasn't either, but my joke stands. Rumor has it that so many students dropped out last year that the standards were being raised. The numbers vary from person to person, but the amount nonetheless makes me pretty nervous.

The entrance exam was much different from the show. Rather than just dueling an examiner(I look down at the instructions we all got to describe the exam) everyone would Duel a teacher's personal deck, as well as a few other duelists who were applying. I wasn't quite sure how things were being measured, as I saw a plain looking boy duel about five times while I saw a very short boy duel about twice. They called out the examinee numbers at random.

Really, I've just been sitting here, shuffling my deck(it was facing downwards), sometimes chatting and exchanging numbers with everyone else around me. Serena was called up and had been down for awhile. She must be on her third duel if I'm remembering right. I wish Rei could have come, if only to have someone to talk to, but I realize letting non applicants come in would make things even more crowded.

Not many students here beat the teachers testing us, but I counted about a handful or so that did. Serena, the plain boy I'm assuming is Misawa due to the undead deck, a boy with purple hair, a girl with blondish hair, and trench coat (probably) Manjoume.

"Hoh~ all these duels are making me fired up! Please call me next please call me next!"

That voice...no way. I look over to see a boy in a red hoodie with the letter H on it.

Yup. That was Yuki Judai.

Even his reaction was different from everyone else. Everyone was either dreading their soon to be turn, dreading their turn, or waiting quietly like me.

I don't mix well with someone so energetic. But he was fun to observe given all his squirming.

"Why don't you sit and save your energy?"

...Is what I would say if Judai wasn't a freak genius at dueling. Besides, I'm terrible at talking to people, if I could, I'd be listening to music on my headphones to unwind.

"Will Examinee 300 enter Area 2B. I repe-" without waiting for them to finish his face lit up and he went down to his area.

Huh, not even a minute into meeting him and he's called up. Guess he's getting the duels he wanted already. I look over to the exam area and see a man with a ponytail. Poor guy really is destined to duel Chronos it seems.

"Good luck RedJacket!" I shout out at a last minute since he might actually need it. His hand raised up in acknowledgement as he rushed down to the duel area.

I wonder what type of deck Judai uses. I assume it's some variation of Heroes since that's a constant through the media on my world.

Unfortunately this isn't like the anime where observers have godlike ears and can hear the duels from afar. My normal ears can't catch anything from this distance.

All students are to take the first turn, as such Judai uses it to...summon Air Hummingbird and gain half of his life points.

That's unexpected and amazing. A sentiment shared by everyone else watching his duel though for different reasons. I could vaguely make out the words. 'What's that card? It has to be rare right?' 'Incredible. He just got a massive advantage straight out!'

Judai slapped down two face downs before Chronos took his turn. He slapped down some face downs of his own and brought out Antique Gear Wyvern. He added a card to his hand, though I couldn't tell you what it was.

Air Hummingbird was destroyed and one of Judai's traps was revealed to be the Neo spacian signal card, and he brought out GrandMole.

Now that it was Judai's turn, he brought out Neos Space Connector and brought out Neos in defense mode before promptly activating a contact fusion and bringing out the drill using Neos. He returned wyvern to the hand and attacked, leaving Chronos with like 700 life points or something.

I'll be honest, this was a pretty cutthroat move.

He activated his face down, Take Over 5, and sent the cards at the top of his deck to the grave.

Chronos looked more impressed then mad to be honest. But as his turn came by, he proved why he was the teacher in charge of the Obelisks. He activated a trap card that didn't do anything yet it seems. He summoned Antique Gear Hound Dog and hit Judai twice, I think due to the trap card he dealt 1200 damage instead of 600. He then activated the dog's effect and summoned Howlitzer in defense, then dealing 2000 damage. He activated a spell card that blew up Howlitzer then activated a second one that destroyed his trap and summoned an Antique Gear Golem.

He attacked Neo Space Connector, leaving Judai with 1100 life points.

Wow. If it wasn't for Hummingbird he would have just lost.

The awed audience started to write off Judai and talk about how crazy good Chronos was.

I didn't.

I'm more curious as to see how he could win, or even stall. He still has more than a few cards in his hand, plus a draw phrase and an extra card(s) in Take Over 5.

He drew his two cards, then activated a spell card that brought a spell from the graveyard, and brought out what revealed itself to be Convert Contact. After sending some Neo Spacians to the graveyard and drawing, he activated Miracle Contact.

He summoned Nebula Neos, drawing a card and negating Golem's effects, and then proceeded to summon Elemental Hero Prisma and use his effect.

I wondered what Fusion he would bring out with Prisma, but my thoughts were cut off, as rather than send a Neos, or a Neo Spacian, he sent a blue warrior.

He activated Fusion, and brought out The Earth.

Well looks like we have-

Nebula Nero was absorbed by the other monster, with the added attack points it left The Earth free to attack Chronos.

-a winner.

This was...interesting. Judai already has the Neo Spacians, but he's also using Heroes, notably The Earth.

Still, duels were harsh. 4000 was surprisingly easy to whittle down, especially for the higher tiered duelists. It's no wonder action cards were created to make duels last longer.

I will repeat that until the end of my days. Gimme my casual 8000 no action cards any day over this 4000 bullsh-

"Will Examinee 8 enter Area 1A. I repea-" FUCK I'M NEXT!

N-no. Gotta calm down. Too much adrenaline will screw with me. I'll be fine(hopefully). It's not as if I have to win. Just put on a good show.

Not that I'm any good at that either, but putting on a fight is possible. I already hate losing, so as long as I try not to lose I should be fine.

Probably.

Hopefully.

…

Well, worst comes to worst, I'm using the cheapest cards that I like for this.

I stiffly walked down, focusing on my breathing on the way. A few examinees that were sitting with me(some said they recognized me from my practice duels, which I honestly didn't appreciate) wished me good luck. I felt bad for not recognizing any of them in the slightest, but I was always bad at memorizing people at first.

I was mostly trying to get the twisting sensation in my stomach under control. It had been easier dealing with this nervousness with the other duels. They had no stakes and I was new to dueling, so no reason to be ashamed of losing even if I didn't want to. But this was a duel with a part of my future on the line. I didn't want to beg Mokuba-san to just slip me in the system. That would just piss off anyone who finds out, plus I'd lose what little respect Kaiba has for me.

Though that's what I felt before I knew we were going to duel actually competent and not holding back adults. Ugh. I think I'm gonna throw up.

I slipped on my golden duel disk over my left arm and laid it over a counter in front of the area door. The orb flashed a rainbow and my profile information appeared on screen before the door opened up.

My gut twisted even further as I recognized the teacher.

Hibiki Midori.

A champion and a really dangerous duelist.

She gave what I assume is a comforting smile, no doubt seeing the same realization in me that others she faced today had.

Oh this was going to be horrible. The one duel she had that was published on my world had her in clear control and dominance and would have won if not for her brother being used against her. Her recorded duels on this world were equally as dominant.

"Don't worry Shiki-kun. You don't have to win, and I'm not completely going all out either."

I swallowed my saliva.

"Let's just get this over with." I force out. My gut was really twisting and it was not helping me talk. Even focusing on breathing in and out didn't help.

She looked like she understood and got her duel disk out.

""Duel!""

"I'll start this duel off by activating Dark Contract with the Entities and Darj Contract with the Swamp King. These two continuous spell cards can only activate their effects once per turn, and both deal effect damage to me during my next standby phase. The amount of damage is 2000 and 1000 respectively."

"Hoh?" She raised a calm eyebrow at my information.

My two continuous spells' holograms stood straight.

"I activate Dark Contract with the Swamp King, allowing me to Fusion summon a Fiend-Type Monster. I fuse D/D Night Howling and D/D Swirl Slime from my hand! _Arcane Slime that engulfs all, take in this loyal Hellhound and give rise to a burning ruler! Yugo Shoukan! The Demon King who Hails over Fire! D/D/D Rekka-ō Temujin!"(2000 atk/ 1500 def)_

"Fusing without a fusion card, and it stays on the field too...but the price is quite costly..." I somewhat heard her muttering aloud to herself.

"Now Dark Contract with the Entities activates. Because I summoned a fusion monster I now gain 1000 life points. As depending on the type of monster I summon to field, it activates one of its effects." (Me-4000→5000) showed on my duel disk.

"Interesting…so the other card helps mitigate the risks behind the costs of those dark contracts." She said aloud.

I looked at my remaining cards...this would only work if she attacks, but I'm willing to bet on this risk.

"Turn end."

"A fusion monster so early? Are you sure you want to try and put me on the defensive like this Shiki-kun? Especially with those continuous spells? 2000 attack is not very high for a strategy like that. As you know, it won't be very hard for me to counter that in some fashion." Hibiki-san said while drawing.

I shrugged. "There's no victory without risks. As a duelist, banking on those risks to win is obvious." I tried to say calmly while trying to ignore my gut. Sure I could've started out harder, using Swirl Slime and then Swamp King, but no point in starting out so ruthless. Wasn't my style anyways. Duels shouldn't be incredibly one sided, there's a reason I use cards like Duel and Card of Sanctity outside of draw power for myself.

"I see. Well, as your examiner, I'll test those guts of yours!" Please don't remind me of my gut. "I activate Graceful Charity, as you know, I now draw three cards and discard two cards from my hand. Now I activate the effect of Fallen Angel Amdusias in my hand, allowing me to add back my trap card Fallen Angel Bewitchment at the cost of Amdusias and Edeh Arae." Odd, why would she discard a trap card? Is it because she's not taking this too seriously, or is there a plan?

"Now I activate Ordination Platform of the Fallen Angels, allowing me to special summon Superbia in defense mode(2900/2400)." The...winged looking thing plopped down. I honestly had no idea what that was supposed to be either. But I did know it was no good due to its effect, which would activate due to being sent to the GY by graceful charity. "Superbia's special effect allows me to special summon a Fairy-Type monster from the graveyard, and I choose Edeh Arae(2300/2000)!" The horned fellow flew down in attack mode.

"Battle! Edeh Arae attack Rekka-ō Temujin!"

I felt some tension relieve. "I activate a monster effect from my hand! Because you declared attack, I discard D/D Savant Einstein in order to set and activate a trap card from my hand! That card is Lease Laundering! It destroys all Contract Cards on my field, whilst giving me 1000 life points and a new card each. As such, that's 2000 life points and two draws!" (Rai:5000→7000)

The attack went through, destroying Temujin. "Temujin's effect activates, allowing me to add a Contract from my graveyard to my hand, and I choose Swamp King." (Rai-7000→5700)

"I see, so by bringing out a fusion monster in attack like that, you were betting that I would attack, allowing you to add two cards and more life points. Quite a bold move, but I respect it." She said with a smile. Now I was feeling relieved. "Had I realized you intended on raising your life points so much, I wouldn't have gone so easy on you. I'll place two cards face down and end my turn." Annnnd the nervousness was back.

"Ore no turn!" I look at the drawn card to see D/D Lilith. I tap on the sphere of my duel disk and give my GY a quick search to decide my next move. "I activate Swirl Slime's effect. By banishing it in my graveyard, I can special summon a D/D monster in my hand. I choose D/D Lilith in defense mode! Lilith's effect allows me to add a D/D monster from the graveyard to my hand, and I choose to both add and summon Night Howling. With his effect, I special summon a D/D monster in my Grave, but it's effects are negated and it's attack and defense are 0, and if it's destroyed I take 1000 damage. Rise up Savant Einstein!"

I look over to her trap cards. If I'm remembering right, one of them at least has the ability to switch attack targets, so I need a hard hitter.

"I tune the Level 3 tuner Night Howling and the Level 5 Savant Einstein!"

Hibiki-san showed her surprise. "A synchro monster!?"

" _Bloodstained warrior, raise your blade and assert your dominance! Synchro Shoukan! Level 8! D/D/D Juketsu-ō Siegfried_!" (2800/2200)

"Incredible. That's no simple synchro monster." She recognized to herself.

"But I'm not ending there! I activate Dark Contract with the Hellgate, allowing me to add one D/D monster to my hand from my deck, and Dark Contract with the Swamp King." I add and reveal Ghost. " _I use Contract with the Swamp King once more, fusing Ghost in my hand and Lilith on my field! Vamp of the Night, merge together with the Fiendish Specter and give way to a Warrior of God! Yugo Shoukan! Arrive, Defender who wields Light and Darkness! D/D/D Shintaku-ō d'Arc_!" (2800/2000)

"Bringing out two 2800 attack monsters... I again see why you brought out Temujin, as its effect also helped ensure a second fusion should I have destroyed the card myself. But still, leading into a synchro and then a fusion like that in one turn, very impressive." She murmured.

"I attack Edeh Arae with Siegfried! Bloody Slice!"

"I activate my trap card, Heaven's Judgement! I send a Fairy monster of the same level as Siegfried from my deck to the Graveyard in order to destroy him." I react instinctively without thought the moment I heard her say trap card.

"Siegfried's effect activates! During either player's turn I can target a spell or tap that's face up and negate it's effects - I negate your trap card and allow my attack to fall through!"

A snap prevented that. "Trap card activate: Dark Mist! I send a Fallen Angel of the same level as your attacking monster and prevent your attack."

I frown at that. "Well in that case. d'Arc, attack Superbia!" I decided getting rid of those 2900 attack points would be better. Don't want to let Siegfried or d'Arc be destroyed. At least I got rid of both traps and kept a weaker monster on her side.

"Prepare yourself, the real duel starts now! I activate Banishment of the Fallen Angels, allowing me to add one to my hand. I add Fallen Angel Desire and use the effect of Fallen Angel Ixchel in my hand to discard her and Desire, adding two cards to my hand." I can already feel the headache coming. Desire, unless it was different here, can send monsters to the GY for the price of 1000. But she likely doesn't want to lose too many attack points, I still had Swamp King and she knew it was troublesome. "Because I now have more than four dark monsters in the graveyard, I can tribute Edeh Arae for my Level 8 Fallen Angel Zerato(2800/2300)! I now activate his effect, I discard the Fallen Angel Marie and destroy all monsters you control."

"Shit!" I mutter to myself while covering my face. "Siegfried's effect activates, I now gain 1000 life points each for all Contract cards I control when he's destroyed!" (5700→7700) That was close...I got so panicked I almost forgot that.

"This still leaves you wide open for an attack!"

"Gah!" (Rai:7700→4900) Holy shit, even if it didn't actually have a body to hit me that was scary as fuck.

"I set one card face down and end my turn. And by banishing the highest level Fallen Angel in my graveyard, Darklord Ixchel, I prevent Zerato from destroying itself during the turn it activates this effect." Oh great. Well, I think this explains why she sent Amduscias to the grave.

"My draw." I mutter, wincing as my life points take a hit without d'Arc to help. (Rai:4900→2900) "Uh, just for the record, d'Arc's effect was meant to negate effect damage and make me gain it instead." I say that hoping it would help show I wasn't being completely reckless. But - "Well, anyways, I use Hellgate's effect, adding D/D/D Rebel King Leonidas to my hand. Now I activate Contract with the Yamimakai, I place Savant Einstein into the Pendulum Zone from my Extra Deck," I ignored her surprise at it being a pendulum monster, "now I activate his effect, returning it to my hand in exchange for being unable to use that pendulum zone for the rest of the turn."

I looked at my cards and again in my graveyard, I wasn't sure if this was the best move but...wait, I don't need to use Einstein, Swamp King can use the graveyard! "I use Swamp King to fuse Rebel King Leonidas in my hand and Ghost in my Graveyard!"

"Graveyard!? Not Einstein, but Ghost!?"

"That's right! Swamp King allows me to banish monsters from the graveyard because I'm summoning a D/D monster! _Unrelenting Warrior, join with the lone Specter and give rise to the Dragonslaying Hero! Fusion Summon! Kokuryū-ō Beowulf(3000/2500)!"_

I wasn't really liking this situation, not any damage towards her and the only reason I'm still kicking is because I gained a shitton of LP. Even whittling her down is hard. Good thing I decided not to hold back on my summoning.

"Now Ghost's effect kicks in, when he's banished, I can send a card from the banished zone to the graveyard, so I'll bring back Swirl Slime. Now, Beowulf, attack Zerato with your Dragonbane Slash!"

(Hibiki:4000→3800)

Geez.

200 damage...

This is not good at all...still, I'll give it my best, I did promise Serena...as such, rather than just react like I usually do, I'll keep an eye out and try to predict what's next.

She didn't use that trap card, so thank god for that, but my paranoia tells me I won't like what it does. I didn't want to aim for mutual destruction regardless, so I didn't bring out Temujin or d'Arc. Still, I'm super fucked if I don't get rid of my Contracts.

"My draw! Fallen Angel Marie's effect activates, raising my life points by 200,"(Hibiki:3800→4000) oh you got to be fucking with me. I can't believe I forgot that. Back to square zero. "I activate Heaven's Lost Property, now we draw three cards and discard two cards."

I looked at my hand. Card of Sanctity, Einstein, Contract Change, Dimension Drape, Pandora and Chaos King Apocalypse.

Einstein and Contract Change go hand in hand, Card of Sanctity was a double edged sword, Apocalypse would come in handy for getting rid of the Contracts, Dimension Drape is pretty useful for keeping both Apocalypse and Beowulf. Well, I doubt Dimension Drape would be that useful since Einstein needs her to attack, and she might have a destruction or take control of my monsters, and Contract Change would save my LP if she summons back Zerato or uses any other weird effect. I think Apocalypse works in the GY as well, so Dimension Drapes and Apocalypse it is. Card of sanctity could still work as a last resort. That being said, my dumbass was done for if she takes out any lifepoints.

"Now I activate Disgraceful Charity, we now add the cards we discarded back to our hands." Oh. Well so much for all that thought.

"I activate Ordination Platform of the Fallen Angels and bring back Amduscias, and with his effect, by paying 1000 life points I can use that spell card effect once more!" (Hibiki:4000→3000)Fuck. I can already see the desolation in my future. "I bring back Superbia and Zerato!" The three very intimidating fellows glared down at me.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck please don't have a monster in the hand.

"I set two cards, now I sacrifice Superbia and Zerato to advance summon Fallen Angel Lucifer(3000/3000)!" Hoo boy. Not what I expected. Good thing I didn't summon Apocalypse yet given this ones effect.

"With his effect, I can special summon one Fallen Angel from my deck, and I choose Fallen Angel Tezcatlipoca(2800/2100)!" This was getting more and more intimidating, but hopefully Einstein can save my ass. "Lucifer has a secondary effect, allowing my to send three cards from the top of my deck to the graveyard, and I gain 500 life points for each Fallen Angel sent to the graveyard. And it seems to be my lucky day as I gain 1000." (Hibiki:3000→4000) Oh perfect. Full health again.

"Now, Fallen Angel Lucifer, attack Beowulf!"

"Forget it! I activate Einstein's effect once more, only this time I use the trap card Dimension Drapes, preventing my monsters from being destroyed!"

She simply smiled at her monster's destruction. "I suppose-"

"Before you end your turn I use Chaos King Apocalypses effect from my hand, by destroying two of my Contracts, I can special summon him, so I destroy Yaminakai and Hellgate!" I rush out my words from having waited too long.

"Tripping over your words are you?" she said nearly laughing. "It seems you've survived another turn. But I warn you now, if you don't win here, I'll finish this when I draw. While Lucifer is in the graveyard, I can banish two level five or higher Fallen Angels to special summon him from the graveyard during my standby phase."

That's ominous. But also helpful.

"My draw, first I activate Beowulf's effect-"

"I activate Fallen Angel of Godhood! By sending a level 5 or higher Fallen Angel from my deck to the Graveyard, your monsters effect is negated and I gain life points equal to its attack!" (Hibiki:4000→7000)

Oh come on! Well, I suppose that's karma for you.

Well let's see, she has Amduscias, the weirdly named one, one trap card, and two graveyard effects. She'll definitely use her two 1000 cost effects, or at least I intend on making her use them.

I'm sure I can rule one of the effects as being used to bring Superbia and one other monster out. She banished the sexy one already, so I won't have to worry about her using a spell or trap later on.

I look at the card I drew and one other card. Card of Sanctity. Earlier I was almost hoping I'd never draw it, despite having two copies in this deck. But that was before I knew I was dueling this woman, and before I was losing. This is my last chance anyways, so using it this turn is just fine.

"I set two cards facedown and activate Cards of Sanctity!"

With my hand reset I have loads of options. Well, more than before anyways.

I had to win. I'm not losing. And there's no way I'm not joining that small list of awesome winners. So what if she has 7000 life points? I'll bring her down now!

Hopefully.

"It's not over till it's over!"

I won't bother trying to stall. I either win now, or lose now.

"I activate my set spell card D/D Contract Reborn! I send Contract with the Swamp King to the graveyard and special summon Juketsu-ō Siegfried! Return my red stained warrior!" My spell card vanished in a glow and out came Siegfried from the ground.

"I activate Amduscias's effect, I pay 1000 life points to activate Fallen Angel of Tempation and take control of Siegfried!" (Hibiki:7000→6000)

Damn! And with Siegfried's effect she can negate my Contract Cards, I need to trick her into using it...the faster it's no longer a variable the easier it is for me.

"First I discard Savant Newton, his effect allows me to bring back a Contracts card, and I choose and activate Contract with the Entities." No dice yet huh. "I set the scales in my favor with the Scale 1 D/D Savant Galilei and the Scale 10 D/D Savant Kepler!" With the two glowing pillars behind me I began my offensive. "My current scales allow me to special summon monsters between the levels 2 and 9. Demons from another Dimension, test the boundaries of Space and Time and break the limits of our Potential! D/D Brownie, D/D/D Supersight King Zero Maxwell(2800/2500), and D/D Savant Copernicus!"

"But don't get too used to them, _because I tune the Level 3 Tuner D/D Brownie and Level 4 D/D Savant Copernicus! Conquer the World with the Swiftness and Ferocity of the wind! Synchro Summon! Level 7! D/D/D Shippū-ō Alexander(2500/2000)!"_

"Now Contract with the Entities activates, making Alexander immune to card effects!"

"Not if Siegfried negates it!" Hibiki-san replied stopping that.

Aha! She took it!

Okay! Just need some monsters with attack around 3000! Then I can take out those monsters.

Or not, now that I think about it having more monster's would just screw me if I'm not careful enough to win now. I really need to finish this in a decisive blow.

"I activate the spell card D/D/D Advance! By discarding one card, I can return my D/D/D monster's back to the extra deck from my GY, then summon an equal number of monsters from the extra deck. However, they must be the same type, attribute, and card type. So I'll return Temujin to summon Rekka Dai-ō Temujin(2800/2400)!"

I have a full field, but until I get rid of the other monster's effect, I can't be sure I've won. I'd rather not use Alexander's effect seeing as I can barely remember what's in my graveyard, and I'd rather not take too long to plan everything.

I need...something else. Something where I can force her to use her traps and still have room for more options.

" _This legion is yours to command."_ An interaction from not too long ago came to mind.

 _Kings and Demons from another dimension huh? It's not like I can hide it, an aesthetic like that hits me pretty hard. Though I don't see why anyone would want to hide it._

 _Alright then. Let's seal this with a handshake._

 _With overwhelming power, let's rage with all our hearts. When there's a wall, tear it down- when there's an enemy, crush em and make them submit. In return, I'll do my damn best to watch your glory._

 _With no hesitation, show me how demons from another dimension conquer and grow._

 _Show me, why there's no reason to fear._

An image came to mind...a king that was looked over, a demon of a different element, a card that gives options when there are none...this could work.

"With the Level 7 Chaos King Apocalypse and Level 7 Shippū-ō Alexander I set the Overlay Network!"

"Now Xyz summon!" My hopefully soon to be teacher said, probably alongside the crowd. I couldn't resist looking at the crowd and her face(both things I was very pointedly trying to ignore this whole time for the sake of my stomach, not that staring up at giant menacing creatures wasn't any better), so many wide eyes and dropped jaws. It would have made me smile if I didn't want to weeb out right now.

" _O Wise Emperor, rise up and begin a legacy of virtue for God! XYZ summon! Rank 7! Zenryōna-ō Constantine_!" (Rank 7 – 2900/1400 - Light - Fiend) An imposing white armored figure descended from black space, he almost looked like a bust if not for the green highlights. "Not only that, but Temujin special summons a monster in my Graveyard because a D/D monster was summoned, so I'll bring back d'Arc. Now I activate Constantine's effect! When I detach an Overlay unit, I can activate a Contract Card straight from my deck, but it is sent to the GY at the end of the turn and I take 2000 damage! I choose Deceitful Contract with the War Deity. I activate it, raising Beowulf's attack and lowering Siegfried's attack both by 1000!"

Either way, I'll fail or succeed spectacularly! But preferably, I'd like to win!

"First! Beowulf bring down Siegfried!" (Hibiki:6000→4800)

"Second! Maxwell attack Amduscias! And with his effect, Amduscias's defense is lowered to 0 and Maxwell deals piercing damage!"(Hibiki:4800→2000)

"Third! Constantine attack her last monster!" I hope my attempt to avoid saying it's last name was missable.

"I activate Tezcatlipoca's effect in order to copy Ordination Platform of the Fallen Angels, summoning both Superbia(2900/2400) in defense and Desire(3000/2800) inn attack mode!" (2000→900)

No good... Desire has too many attack points to get through conventionally. But it's a good thing I still have an Overlay material to use right now.

"I can still use Constantine's effect! I detach his last Overlay Material and activate Contract with the Valkyrie! This new Contract activates by sending a D/D or Contract card to the GY, and then destroys one card on your field! I send the Deceitful Contract away and destroy Desire!

"Tch. What a useful Monster!"

"Fourth! d'Arc attack Superbia!" The saintly-ish demon cut apart the fallen angel.

"Now Fifth! Temujin!" The last monster flew towards Hibiki-san, who snapped and activated her set card.

"Fallen Angel Descent! By paying half my life points I special summon as many monsters as I can that are the same level of one of your own!"

I grin. "Temujin's effect activates! Because it's my turn, I can negate one spell or trap card that's activated! Yoshaa!"

(Hibiki:900→0)

Rai wins! Woohoo!

Hibiki-san looked stunned for a second before composing herself with a smile. She clapped and congratulated me.

I held my stomach with my right arm and keel over a bit. Ooh. Even while hearing people cheer for me feels nice, it doesn't take away my anxiety.

I shake. I did a good job blocking them out, but now I just want to go home and watch anime and listen to music now that this is over.

Can't though.

"That was a fine duel Shiki-kun. Now, despite having won, we still need to observe your skills further to place you in the best suiting dorm, as such we'll be sending a new opponent down soon after some deliberation, would you like to rest? Or, if you really don't want to duel more, you can stop, but you will lose your chance to become an Obelisk, or Ra if your theoretical score is low." I wonder if I was that obvious on being tired or if she's just offering the obvious.

"U-um. I guess, uh, not?" Best to rip the bandaid off I guess.

She looked at me with that look I've seen most women in my life give me at one point or another. The one that said "It's yes or no."

"I mean- No, I'm fine with dueling more right now."

She lost the look and smiled. "Good luck for your next few duels. Though if you asked me you're a shoo in for Ra if you really don't want to duel any further."

I smile and she walks out, leaving me with my thoughts.

Christ that was hard. I don't know how I won still.

I need a video of what happened, if only to figure out what the hell I was doing.

Still, I looked out to the stands. As nervous as it made me, it was great hearing them cheer for me when I won. Maybe one day my guts will not twist at listening to any cheers during the duel.

I shake my head and get my D/D/D deck and start shuffling it with my hands, mostly to waste time more than anything.

I give a small look at my extra deck, seeing the new Rank 7 monster. Though 'new' isn't quite right. I noticed him in the background of the D/D/D monsters. Even before today, he's the only one of them that I managed to get approval from, so I wasn't surprised that he came to my help.

I lean against one of the walls and think about how many times I should duel. I would like to duel and get a better evaluation, but I really just want to go home and sleep. Not out of laziness, but because I feel exhausted.

Also, I made the mistake of starting a new anime and I prefer to binge whenever possible. I won't lie, that's a pretty bad habit of-

"You!"

Yeah-wait what?

Me?

I look over from where I'm leaning. He had razzled brown spiky hair and a big build, not large or fat, just big. He had some black spots under his eyes too making him look even more horrible.

"Do I know you?"

"Wha-! We dueled each other last week!"

I hummed. "Well, if you say we did, I believe you. Who won?"

"Damnit don't get cocky just cuz you won when I was going easy on you! This time I'm being serious from the start!"

Jeez, so temperamental. It was just a simple question. I dueled more than a few dozen people in the past week, how could I remember them all?

I slap my deck in, "Well, I just want to go home, let's get started." I finished saying walking to my end of the dueling field.

"I'm paying you back for all the damn trouble you gave me when you won! Prepare to be crushed!"

I roll my eyes. I recognize him a little more now. Overreaction much? Just because I posted the duel(and what happened before it) online and you got trashed for being an asshole doesn't mean I'm to blame.

Well, technically I am. But it wouldn't have happened if you were a better human being.

Whatever.

""Duel!""

"I'll set one card and activate Hand Destruction! Now we both discard our hand and add cards back equal to the original amount!"

Doesn't he get tired shouting so angrily? He acts as if I showed him pictures of his mother being a whore or something.

"Now I activate Thunder Dragon Fusion, returning some of the monsters I discarded to my deck in order to summon a fusion monster! Gathering clouds, form together and strike with fury! Fusion Summon! Destroy everything, Thunder Dragon Colossus(2600/2400)!" The same monster as before growled with the same unnaturalness as, well, before.

"Now I activate the effect of Mithra the Thunder Vassal, special summoning it to my field and one Vassal token to yours in defense mode. And because of Mithra, I can tribute it to Summon Thunder Dragon Beast(2400/0)!"

"Now I activate Thunder Gathering, I have two Thunder-Type monsters on the field, so I draw two cards, but at the cost of no longer drawing this turn. I then activate Level Thunder! You take 100 damage for the combined levels of my monster's! So that's 1400 damage! Take this slacker!"

I raise my golden duel disk to block the thunder. That was admittedly impressive. Very aggressive too, looks like he learned his lesson. (Rai - 4000→2600)

"I set two cards face down and end my turn. It's the end for you slacker." He ended with a smug face.

I see he learned the folly of allowing his opponent too much of a chance to fight back.

In that case, I'll do the same. Unlike with Midori-san, I will crush his plays completely and apathetically. It's not my style to not allow my opponent a fighting chance, but I'll make an exception this time.

Unless I'm able to take things easy, in which case no point in not having fun.

"I'll admit Rado, you're different from before, you learned your lesson on not taking an opponent seriously. Here's lesson two, it's not over till it's over!"

"Damnit my name is-"

"I start off by placing D/D Orthros in my pendulum zone!"

"D-D/D? Who are you!? How do you have those cards!?"

I raised an eyebrow, far as I know D/D monster's aren't actually in circulation at all.

Then I heard Minerva whisper to me in the first time in forever in the real world.

" _Please_ _remember, there are many duel monsters who will pull others from your world. Not just my clan. You needn't worry, while those dragons are not kind, they will not attack you physically either."_

Oh yeah. Well, both of those sentences are helpful.

I ignore his words once more. If he was smart, he'd realize it pretty quickly.

"Now I set my remaining cards and activate Cards of Demise, I draw five cards, and in five turns, I discard my whole hand at that time."

I check out my new hand and his monster's. That unkillable dragon will be an annoyance. As will his trap cards, no doubt taking advantage of his Fusion monster's effect. I can assume one will be an effect that activates during battle, and the other to intercept my plays.

"I complete my scale with the Scale 8 D/D Savant Dirac! Now, I can pendulum summon monsters between the Levels 3 and 8! Come to me! Savant Copernicus, Savant Schrodinger, Supersight King Zero Maxwell!"

"Copernicus's effect activates, allowing me to send Contract with the Yamimakai to the Graveyard. Now I tribute Maxwell to summon D/D Vice Typhon. And his effect lets me tribute himself to special Summon a Level 7 D/D/D monster from my deck, and I choose Dragon King Pendragon(2600/2400)!"

As the large monster flew in, I considered my fusion options, and my spells and traps.

"I activate Vice Typhons effect, banishing him and Maxwell to Fusion Summon from the graveyard! _Demons of another dimension, swirl together from the grave and bring forth a new demon! Fusion Summon! Come forth, D/D/D Dotō Kaichi-ō Caesar Ragnarock(3200/3000)_!"

He paled at the monstrous fiend glaring down at him.

Hm, if I hit Beast, he can summon another monster, but if I hit Colossus, he stays on the field...seems an obvious enough decision.

"Now I activate Deceiful Contract with the War Deity, I now lower your Thunder Dragon Beast's attack and raise Caesar's by 1000 each! Now I attack your...Thunder Dragon Beast! And with Caesar's effect I send my Contract to the graveyard and attach your Colossus to Caesar as an equip card, adding his attack to Caesars!" (Caesar-4200 → 6800 attack)

He choked. "I-I activate my trap card, Defense Draw! And you know what it does! Plus I activate my other trap card Thunder Dragon Discharge, which destroys a card on your field when a Thunder dragon is summoned, so I can destroy that equipped Thunder Dragon by banishing a thunder monster in my deck."

Not bad for a copycat move. (Caesar-3200) Of course, I also note that he's holding back information on that trap card, smart move, if a bit dickish.

"Nice job surviving the first onslaught, but this ain't over by a long shot. I attack your Origin Thunder Dragon with Pendragon. The large dragon demon destroyed the child sized sphere/egg with a stomp. "Before I end my turn, I'll activate the set spell Inheritance, banishing one of my Xyz D/D/D monster's in the extra deck to draw three cards, and I set one card facedown."

"My draw! I special summon Aeon Thunder Dragon(2800/0) by banishing Thunder Dragon Beast and Mithra, come my two headed Thunder Dragon! And now Discharge gets rid of another one of those set cards, I choose the card in the far right!"

I grin. My lucky day. "I activate that card in return, it's Energy Drain! Your Aeon Thunder Dragon's attack is now 0 and I draw one card!"

He looked incredibly appalled at that move. Well, I would be too, this card was incredibly cheap. It's usually kept with my Metalphosis and Invoked Prophecy decks, but I brought it out with the D/D's because I liked the draw effect and it would help with the overkill. Can't be too careful today of all days.

He growled, like his Colossus. " _I activate another Thunder Dragon Fusion, gathering clouds, merge your energy and summon a great beast! Fusion Summon! Thunder Dragon Titan(3200/3200)_!"

A literal bolt of lightning shot down and out came a dragon.

"I activate Origin Thunder Dragon's effect from my hand, my Titan gains 500 attack, and because of Titan's effect I can destroy your monsters! Say goodbye to your Caesar! Now Titan, attack Pendragon!"

"I activate Savant Schrodinger's effect, all battle damage is 0 now."

Heh. I almost wanted to taunt him about why he didn't activate his trap again, but I resisted, knowing Titan would be hard to beat.

"Tch. I set three cards face down."

"Ore no turn. I -"

"I activate my trap card Thunder of Ruler, skipping your battle phase! When my turn comes you're dead!"

I roll my eyes. Too early to celebrate. I still have a good set up for a good play.

I'll end this quickly. Those unkillable Thunder dragons are a pain in the ass.

Those trap cards are likely to help activate a combo to destroy my field.

Option A. One or both of those cards are destruction cards, like torrential tribute, destroying all cards aside that dragon as a result.

Option B. One or both are battle phase traps. Like mirror force.

Option C. A resurrection, on the off chance I can destroy that dragon.

Option D. A mix of options.

"I discard Savant Newton to bring back Deceitful Contract with the War Deities. Before I place it down and activate it, I activate Contract with the Eternal Darkness! Because I have two pendulum zones filled you can't target my monsters with spells or traps, nor will you be able to fusion summon. I also activate Contract with the Hellgate, in order to add Night Howling. I summon him, but I won't activate his effect. Instead I'll play this card! Harmonic Synchro Fusion! I target Night Howling and Copernicus, and I can now synchro summon and fusion summon using those two as materials. Come forth in defense mode! Alexander! d'Arc!"

The two level 7 monster's appeared in a swirl of light.

"Alexander's effect activates due to d'Arc's summon, and brings Night Howling in defense mode!"

With a pair of menacing monsters, he realized he was once more, in a bad position. But the realization that I couldn't attack seemed to regain some confidence unfortunately.

"I set two cards, and end my turn."

"Draw!" He looked down at his small hand before nodding. "I activate Lightning Crash! It lets me add one Thunder monster to my hand, and I choose Origin Thunder Dragon. I activate this combo once more, destroying d'Arc with Titan's effect, and attacking Alexander!"

I almost shake my head. "I activate Dimension Drape, my monsters cannot be destroyed now."

He growled. "Punk! I set one card and end my turn."

"Heh! Because of d'Arc my contract cards make me gain life points!" (Rai - 2600→4600) " _I now tune the Level 3 Howling with the Level 7 d'Arc! Witness the Conqueror of the World and his terrifying Gales! Synchro Summon! Level 10! Hayate-Daiō Alexander(3000/2500)_! And because of Shippū-ō I can summon back Howling, then d'Arc because of Hayate-Daiō. Now Daiō Alexander also has 6000 attack because of how many monsters I have, but that wouldn't be enough to finish this, which is why I activate Deceitful Contract with the War Deities and use it on Alexander and Titan." With 7000 attack, and 2200 attack, the difference was too much for him to get over unless he has another trap card to help.

Which, based on his pale face, is not an option.

"Alexander, finish this."

Well, that's what happens when you have an overly offensive deck. I couldn't take pride in a win like this, but I won't deny that I have warm fuzzy feeling in my chest from winning.

As the holograms disappeared I notice him glare at me with more hatred than before. "You...! How do you have those cards!" Is he seriously forreal?

Whatever, if he doesn't realize it, not my problem. Least I won't have to worry about his dumbass knowing any of my secrets.

"Are you just gonna sit there? I still have another duel, and your dumbass is too distracting."

He stood up and began saying something. "Listen here buddy." Oh wow, the friendliness in his voice is incredible. "I was brought here to win. And I'm gonna win. I don't care if you have a bunch of cheat cards, you're done for next time we meet. I'm not letting some nobody steal my second chance at life!"

"Cheat cards? Wow real mature. Maybe don't play stupid and you'll actually win." I couldn't help but scoff at him. "Now get outta here. Loser. I have better things to do than talk with someone with such an attitude. Maybe the one who sent you here should have sent you back the moment you thought your worth was above anyone else's, but why should I have been surprised that a bunch of stupid lizards couldn't help but pick a stupid duelist." His deck arm flinched, as if he got static shocked by touching another person, and he left while arguing to himself. But I could hear growling, showing that he was probably defending himself and failing, from said stupid lizards.

Maybe if I'm lucky those stupid lizards will send his ass back. I don't want to have to deal with someone like that.

 _"Master, should you really have antagonized him like that? It seems quite unfair to him to be sent back after how rude you were."_

Pff. You heard him. Those dragons wanted a stronger duelist and brought him, but they're no noble dragons. They simply wanted someone to wield power, and got it, but power alone can falter under the weight of so many different things.

Each duel, he brought out those dragons, and dueled expecting to win. He didn't support them, nor summon more strong monsters. An ace is good and all, but only when properly supported.

I don't consider my Heroes, my D/D/D or any of my decks to have an Ace, because we all fight my enemies together.

Which you would know if you and your clan would duel with me.

 _"...sorry master..."_

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking you or your clan, just mentioning facts. If you aren't comfortable with me, I'm fine with that.

All I'm saying, is that those dragons brought someone who thinks of themself and only themself. The rumors on him painted a clear picture on what type of person he was. He doesn't enjoy dueling, he enjoys winning. And that is a dangerous combination to have when he doesn't even consider the people of this world as Human. I'd rather he be sent back by those dragons then for us or somebody else to have to permanently deal with him.

 _"...would you be able to...?"_

...

...

...

"Sorry I'm late! Hope you didn't wait long. Are you ready to duel?"

...

...

"Yeah."

* * *

AN : DA won't be coming for another two chapters. Don't get too excited. Review and favorite for the sake of my inspiration.

Last time you'll be seeing the SI Bully. I don't think he'll have much of a purpose except from at a distance where Rai thinks about what he needs to avoid to become like that. Granted, he's about halfway there when it comes to being an asshole, but he doesn't treat everyone like that, which is his saving grace.

Also, consider the teachers like the Pro heroes from My Hero Academia during the midterm exams. They take the duel seriously, but also hold back at the same time. That's the reasoning behind some of the plays I had Hibiki make during the duel. The original draftline had her fusion summon, but I realized that would be making the duels too hard and giving the students no chance to win at all if it were all the teachers doing that.

And to be honest even I'm surprised that I made an OC Rank 7 monster and used it this early. It's pretty OP, but honestly all the D/D/D monsters are crazy strong.

* * *

Card Modifications / OC Cards

DDD Advance – Spell – Discard one card from your hand, return D/D/D monsters to the extra deck from your GY, then summon an equal number of monsters from the extra deck. However, they must be the same type, attribute, and card type as the monsters sent to the extra deck.

D/D Contract Reborn – Spell - Send one Contract from the field or hand to the graveyard. Special summon a D/D monster from the GY. You can banish this card from the GY, send a D/D monster from the field or hand to the GY and set a Contract card from your GY to the field and you can activate it this turn.

Inheritance – Spell – Draw three cards by banishing a D/D/D monster from the extra deck, field, or GY. This card can only be activated this turn.

D/D/D Zenryōna-ō Constantine (Virtuous King Constantine) – Rank 7 – 2900/1400 – Light – Fiend – Two or more level 7 monsters – By detaching one xyz material, you can activate one Dark Contract Spell/Trap directly from your deck, but it is sent to the GY at the end of the turn, then you take 2000 damage for each card send to the GY from this effect(quick effect) however this card cannot attack. During the Standby Phase, if you would take effect damage from a Dark contract card while this card still has xyz materials, you can negate that damage, also this card gains ATK equal to the damage you would have taken until the end of the turn.


End file.
